(a.) Wanting confidence in one's self; distrustful of one's own powers; not self-reliant; timid; modest; bashful; characterized by modest reserve.
Example Sentences:
(1) The Observer of the mid-1950s resembled nothing so much as a giant seminar conducted by the soft-spoken and diffident, yet steely, figure of David Astor.
(2) The main factor, however, is presumably not primness or diffidence but the chart's timeframe.
(3) Physically, he has a sort of wiry poise, often standing on the balls of his feet, but there is also something diffident, almost shyly polite, about him.
(4) In conversation, he is a curious mix of openness and a sweet, faintly diffident shyness.
(5) Diffident technically, she none the less doggedly pursued the detail of the execution of her scenery and costumes: she got what she needed.
(6) Wouldn't we rather our film writers be morally engaged viewers rather than diffident aesthetes?
(7) She too is a sceptic, but has been drawn to watch diffident Corbyn – potentially her future leader.
(8) His maiden speech came on his second day as an MP, in the debate on the address – intervening, he suggested improbably, with feelings of diffidence: "I am convinced that the key to all our hopes and aspirations in the field of economic activity lies in the maintenance and improvement of industrial relationships," he said.
(9) They were difficult because of the language barrier, which required exclusive use of interpreters, and because of the diffidence of the women themselves, especially in discussing matters of sex and childbearing.
(10) He is an odd, diffident sort of ambassador, spreading the message about "the Finnish miracle" but not really believing in the data that supposedly proves that it works.
(11) It stars Tom Hollander as a diffident, gaffe-prone British minister who is packed off to Washington DC, where he becomes a pawn in the political opposition to the war.
(12) And soon he was among them, grinning his diffident chipmunk smile, with his wife, a striking vision in white and red, beside him.
(13) A magnet for media coverage around the world thanks to his entrepreneurial success and love of a photo opportunity, Branson can be surprisingly diffident in person.
(14) He was too nervous – petrified before a big case, and diffident about his own abilities.
(15) At 43, he still looked boyish, with his questioning eyes, a thatch of hair and diffident mumbles.
(16) The media glamourised professional women who decided to have children while pursuing demanding careers, and warned women who put off having children that they would regret their diffidence later.
(17) Like Henry, whom Wenger signed as a diffident winger from Juventus in his early twenties in 1999, Welbeck has arrived at Arsenal after doing more running than scoring at Manchester United with the invitation to develop in a more favoured central attacking role.
(18) That diffidence is evident on screen, in Mia's core of vulnerability, the lonely anguish she camouflages with violence and filthy language.
(19) The man whose motto is a diffident "just messin' about" talks with unguarded passion about the process of music-making.
(20) In 1991, Gavin Millar filmed Call For The Dead's successor A Murder Of Quality, with Denholm Elliott as Smiley, his nervous diffidence dovetailing perfectly with the character.
Taciturn
Definition:
(a.) Habitually silent; not given to converse; not apt to talk or speak.
Example Sentences:
(1) The letters have been published amid growing signs that Charles is planning to rule in a far more outspoken way than the taciturn Queen.
(2) Last autumn, however, his allies told a Guardian investigation into the shape of his future reign that he intends to continue to make “heartfelt interventions” in public life after he becomes sovereign, in contrast to the Queen’s taciturn discretion on public affairs.
(3) Inside the Hark to Bounty pub in the Lancashire village of Slaidburn, I found taciturn young gamekeepers, cheeks flushed red from a day outdoors, quietly discussing their shoot by the open fire.
(4) He may claim to be "like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to my job", but others see something far less fun – describing him as taciturn, quiet, serious and work-focused.
(5) More than 20 novels later Rendell explained why she kept returning to her taciturn detective.
(6) He revealed his taciturn coach Ivan Lendl had given him a hug later.
(7) I'll find myself sitting cross-legged next to a taciturn Swedish engineer, a heavily tattooed biker, or another migrant – there's a computer programmer from Chennai – as our children play with the wooden blocks, rattles and drums.
(8) In receiving the David Cohen Literature Prize for lifetime achievement in 1995, he spoke of the sheer pleasure that writing gave him: "I'm well aware that I have been described in some quarters as being 'enigmatic, taciturn, terse, prickly, explosive and forbidding.'
(9) In the few interviews he has given over the past 50 years, he has come across as sombre and taciturn.
(10) Regimented, taciturn, Orwellian images of China's 17th Communist party congress have drawn little comment.
(11) Normally taciturn and professorial, Zeidan threatened to attack the tanker and sink it if it tried to leave.
(12) The legendarily taciturn Ford, when asked how he was, simply said, “I’m fine”, and then, perhaps sensing that was not enough, thanked Hardwick for asking.
(13) It’s impossible to say.” Murray, who tamed his once fiery temper, particularly during his two years with the taciturn Ivan Lendl, has continually expressed satisfaction with the two-time slam champion Mauresmo since she replaced the Czech on a short-term basis a few weeks ago.
(14) The taciturn Pierrepoint never bragged about “the job”.
(15) The fast-talking Ali invariably delighted in using the more taciturn Frazier as his stooge.
(16) The narrator is the 16-year-old Frank Cauldhame, who lives with his taciturn father in an isolated house on the north-east coast of Scotland .
(17) His default utterance is a grunt – that's how he responds when Jessica Chastain's glamorous dancer Maggie swans into town and takes a shine to him – but in spite of his taciturn nature, you can feel the heat of Forrest's intelligence.
(18) Didn't the way that even the most taciturn stars always wanted to take him into their most private confidence seem at all strange to him at the time?
(19) Far from being the taciturn meathead that his films generally make him out to be, he barely lets up for the 45 minutes I spend with him.
(20) She was well until August 20, 1988, when she was noted to have become taciturn and absent-minded.