modester

For what matter is it for us to know how high the Pleiades are, how far distant Perseus and Cassiopeia from us, how deep the sea, &c., we are neither wiser, as he follows it, nor modester, nor better, nor richer, nor stronger for the knowledge of it.

Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

Thessaly, as it appears by that of [3526] Apuleius, who was made an instrument of their laughter himself: [3527] Because laughter and merriment was to season their labours and modester life.

Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

For here every one, who can say things that shock a modester person, not meeting with due rebuke, but perhaps a smile, (without considering whether it be of contempt or approbation) mistakes courage for wit; and every thing sacred or civil becomes the subject of his frothy jest.

Pamela 2006

The more you know, the modester you should be: and (by the bye) that modesty is the surest way of gratifying your vanity.

Letters to his son on The Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman 2005

It is true that the original of this story is put into new words, and the style of the famous lady we here speak of is a little altered; particularly she is made to tell her own tale in modester words that she told it at first, the copy which came first to hand having been written in language more like one still in

Moll Flanders 2003

He likes you; but a young girl like you might make a mistake, if she was ever so modest and sweet, -- and nobody could be modester or sweeter than you, -- and think a man loved you to marry you, when he only pets and plays with you.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 30, April, 1860 Various

Miles knows there is not in America nor in dear old Devonshire a modester or properer young lady.

The Knight of the Golden Melice A Historical Romance John Turvill Adams

I was then perfectly easy; and indeed the maid's behaviour spoke for itself, for a modester, quieter, soberer girl never came into anybody's family, and I found her so afterwards.

The Fortunes And Misfortunes Of The Famous Moll Flanders Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731 1923

'Fie!' says her friend, 'I find you don't know Sir ----; why he is a civil a gentleman, there is not a finer man, nor a soberer, graver, modester person in the whole city; he abhors such things; there's nobody that knows him will think such a thing of him.'

The Fortunes And Misfortunes Of The Famous Moll Flanders Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731 1923

Parliament played during the sixteenth century a modester part than it had played since its creation.

Henry VIII. 1908