Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Inclined to keep one's thoughts, feelings, and personal affairs to oneself. See Synonyms at silent.
- adj. Restrained or reserved in style.
- adj. Reluctant; unwilling.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Disposed to be silent; reserved; not apt to speak about or reveal any matters: as, he is very reticent about his affairs.
Wiktionary
- adj. Keeping one's thoughts and opinions to oneself; reserved or restrained.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Inclined to keep silent; reserved; uncommunicative.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. reluctant to draw attention to yourself
- adj. temperamentally disinclined to talk
- adj. cool and formal in manner
Etymologies
- Latin reticēns, reticent-, present participle of reticēre, to keep silent : re-, re- + tacēre, to be silent.
Examples
“Havel has been described as a reticent, modest, honest, courageous and a Renaissance man -- a man filled with a moral vision of what the quality of life should be for all people.”
“Mr. Catlin, who could hardly be called reticent, at once made plain his feeling about the Missouri, the river that was to carry them some two thousand miles into the mysterious reaches of the West.”
“Maria C. of Jersey City, NJ writes in with today's Mailbag Friday question: "My coworker always uses the word reticent when he really means reluctant.”
“That caricature had faded away over the years, along with the stories of his brutal on-set perfectionism, replaced by a picture of a marginalized but respected industry elder whom journalists and collaborators have described as reticent and not especially prone to introspection.”
“Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan told parliament Thursday the government was " reticent " to protect the taxpayer ' s interest.”
“The story also points out that this is at odds with the constant claim that McCain is "reticent" to discuss that past.”
“In Chausson, the result is a kind of reticent grandeur that I've always found intriguing.”
“But in speaking with a former homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, she said that they might be kind of reticent about doing much of anything.”
“The former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius has proclaimed himself to be rather "reticent" on the subject does he mean ambivalent?”
“MR. MCCURRY: Well I don't -- "reticent" is your word, not necessarily our word.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘reticent’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
garbled, verbose, behoove, runt, douse, stipulate, condolence, incongruous, mundane, euphemism, brusque, labyrinth and 96 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
lackluster, reprimand, loathe, abhor, willful, ample, tremulous, ominous, subtle, rescind, redundant, pretentious and 96 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 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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Express Yourself
Words Describing Emotions
abhor, diffident, bullience, effusice, enervate, frenetic, impetuous, implacable, listless, mercurial, rancorous, reticent and 7 more...
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Vocab #5
wary, entice, façade, expedite, splice, reticent, accost, intrepid, throng, laconic
Oracle334 I don't kow if this comment meets your guidelines for a contribution, but here goes! I find that people nowadays are using reticent as a synonym for reluctant (e.g. John is reticent to show emotion in public). But only one of your cited definitions for reticent mentions reluctant (American Heritage's 3rd citation) - and not as the preferred meaning. My comment I guess is about people's misuse of this word. My gut feeling is that US English speakers choose 'reticent' because it sounds fancier than good old simpler 'reluctant.' Apr 2, 2009
tomsteele reluctant to speak. Dec 24, 2006