Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The state or quality of being reticent; reserve.
- n. The state or quality of being reluctant; unwillingness.
- n. An instance of being reticent.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The fact or character of being reticent; a disposition to keep, or the keeping of, one's own counsel; the state of being silent; reservation of one's thoughts or opinions.
- n. In rhetoric, aposiopesis. Synonyms Reserve, taciturnity.
Wiktionary
- n. tight-lippedness, discretion, avoidance of saying too much
- n. a silent and reserved nature
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality or state of being reticent, or keeping silence; the state of holding one's tonque; refraining to speak of that which is suggested; uncommunicativeness.
- n. (Rhet.) A figure by which a person really speaks of a thing while he makes a show as if he would say nothingon the subject.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the trait of being uncommunicative; not volunteering anything more than necessary
Etymologies
- From Latin reticentia, from reticēre (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Humphrey is particularly eloquent in speaking of that root among our other sins of helplessness which he calls reticence.”
“That which we call reticence is more frequently an inability than an unwillingness to express itself.”
“This reticence is understandable when one sees the way politicians use faith, or religions play the game of politics.”
“The main reason for my reticence is that the legal and tax reviews of the entire transaction required by the basic agreement have not yet been completed.”
The Wall Street Journal: Volkswagen May Delay Porsche Merger
“Although the final results arise from the proceedings made by the lower electoral structures, we maintain reticence towards the correctness of some figures:”
Global Voices in English » Moldova: Overview of Blog Coverage of the Protests
“It's a dangerous, dramatic story, told with sombre reticence from the point of view of an inarticulate character no more able to analyse the forces that manipulate him than the clever 16-year-old boy (in "The Pearl Fishers"), at an Irish Catholic school in the 60s, being "groomed" by the priests in ways he hardly understands.”
“You know my reticence is for an entirely different reason.”
“The main reason for that reticence is that European public opinion strongly favors doing nothing.”
“In my opinion, J.J. Abrams 'reticence translates into "Paramount hasn't offered me enough money and gross/backend for me to agree to this yet.”
J.J. Abrams Says No Cloverfield 2 Anymore? « FirstShowing.net
“Isolation and reticence is not good foreign policy (No sarcasm).”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘reticence’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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GRE Study guide
Going through the Magoosh website, words I pulled from the verbal section. 2012.
magnanimous, correlate, anglicized, simulacrum, tantamount, obsequiousness, subterfuge, vehement, vociferous, benign, concomitant, veracity and 83 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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kat's words
ecumenical, cacophony, clatter, marimba, bamboo, saffron, slice, mercurial, pomegranate, cranky, slipshod, scritch and 511 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Appellations
States of ment.
off kilter, fervent, nonchalant, exuberant, turbid, verbose, eloquent, vicarious, gallivant, orotund, amalgamate, accentuate and 285 more...
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vocabulary
verisimilitude, pendulate, moxie, whimper, nary, stevedore, hubris, prodigious, super-injunction, injunction, lashings, fennel and 202 more...
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Stumbled Words
A list of words that I stumbled upon while reading.
penumbra, prolix, propitious, resplendence, sepulchral, Weltschmerz, apparition, brigand, probity, chalice, paroxysm, pallor and 160 more...
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Reading Reading
Words from the works of Peter Reading - at least one from each (except the Schwitters-esque erosions, cut-ups etc).
overbright, pimpled, muskiness, effuse, stoup, maul, unlevel, viscid, perfidious, glibly, aloes, drouth and 449 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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My GRE
concomitant, mendacity, corollary, mandate, ascertain, exacerbate, substantiate, perennial, exemplify, hegemony, acrimonious, repertoire and 653 more...
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My List
A list of words that I have generated over time.
cairn, cacodaemoniacal, abash, abject, abjure, abstemious, abhor, abnegate, abnegation, abscond, abstruse, acclivity and 702 more...
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xstala's Words
oneiric, inchoate, clandestine, tangerine, brusque, clout, benedictine, argonaut, juniper, tulle, zealot, vesper and 175 more...
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Tawkward
Verbal 'wtf' exchanges; odd moments of conversation and socializing.
somniloquy, bafflegab, syllepsis, sesquipedalian, whinge, divulge, anacoluthon, anaphora, sumpsimus, persiflage, eristic, overtones and 198 more...
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Jigsaw Codex
List? What list?
This is the list that makes up the world.cat, boustrophedon, syndetic, life, imbroglio, interlude, composition, investigation, cantankerous, him, sign, universality and 189 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for reticence.
yarb Her letters'
reticence -
does she think
he does not
want me to
know she writes?
- Peter Reading, Trio, from The Prison Cell and Barrel Mystery, 1976 Jun 23, 2008