Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Habitually untalkative. See Synonyms at silent.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Silent or reserved in speech; saying little; not inclined to speak or converse.
- Synonyms Mute, Dumb (see silent), reserved, uncommunicative, reticent.
Wiktionary
- adj. Silent; temperamentally untalkative; disinclined to speak.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Habitually silent; not given to converse; not apt to talk or speak.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. habitually reserved and uncommunicative
Etymologies
- French taciturne, from Old French, from Latin taciturnus, from tacitus, silent; see tacit.
Examples
“Gen. Kosaner, appointed chief of the general staff last August, was known as a taciturn hardliner within the military.”
The Wall Street Journal: Top Soldier's Retirement Shocks Turkey
“One of the advantages of being taciturn is that it is rare for your words to get you into trouble.”
Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings: November 2005 Archives
“He was in his nineties, had been active up to this weekend, and represented the finest kind of taciturn Yankee.”
“A taciturn man, the nearest Rodia ever came to explaining his masterpiece was to say, "I had in mind to do something big and I did it.”
“Normally, our press would deploy a more taciturn approach with a bit of beady-eyed cynicism thrown in to puncture all the ardour.”
“During the interview, his behavior was, at best, taciturn and it was very difficult to communicate, but I pressed on and asked him how he knew so much about our space orbiter, to which he eventually replied, I saw it on TV.”
“If you were asked to guess what he did, you would most likely say conceptual artist: he's taciturn, watchful, amused.”
The Guardian: El Bulli closes: Farewell parmesan frozen air...
“At the center of it is Bill Belichick, the taciturn Kenobi in a hoodie, whose press conference grunts are scrutinized like koans and whose personnel decisions are trusted as irreproachable.”
The Wall Street Journal: The Patriots and Jets Will Save Your Soul
“Ben (a taciturn Jordan Randall) was the boss to Gus (a restless Krisopher Lee Bicknell).”
“Yet he seems downright taciturn compared with Gould, who so often goes on about how "the meaningless act is the only one that has any meaning" that you wish he'd commit some senseless violence on himself.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘taciturn’.
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 291 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 410 more...
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Sound Sex
taciturn, deflower, recursive, parapraxis, comitative, atelic, awkward, eccentric, libidinous, astereognosis, aloof, moonglade and 44 more...
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y not
gadolinium, Ying Huhai, taciturn, atomic number 39, yttrium, contingent, loose, euxenite, humble, Steve Biko, adventitious, acyclic and 8 more...
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communication words
concise, ethos, cohesive, redundant, circumlocution, logos, pathos, rhetoric, articulate, verbose, taciturn, translate and 4 more...
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Favorite adjectives
ovine, piscine, ursine, lupine, murine, leonine, elephantine, porcine, aquiline, saccharine, serpentine, equine and 3 more...
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Words to describe behavior
aberrant, hubris, calumny, sequester, ebullient, malfeasance, salubrious, foible, mercurial, laconic, fugacity, recalcitrant and 7 more...
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SAT Words
Know these common SAT words
taciturn, docile, expedient, superfluous, eclectic, impromptu, dogmatic, invidious, rhetoric, tenacious, pretentious, parsimony and 14 more...
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Verbal Advantage List
ostensible, paraphrase, digress, uncanny, candor, morose, adept, saturated, pragmatic, congenial, capricious, blatant and 487 more...
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Vocab from High School
Words that I found in an old notebook.
affinity, aggrandizement, altruistic, ameliorate, apochryphal, aversion, blithe, bombastic, cajole, callous, capitulate, capricious and 178 more...
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Underused Gems
Good words that I should use more often.
erroneous, sapient, taciturn, lugubrious, supercillious, virulent, derelict, ostentatious, abjure, paltry, florid, elucidate and 8 more...
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Awesome
Awesome words
mimsy, detritus, skive, canonise, nascence, concupiscence, tumescent, ophidian, houri, vorpal, cyprian, Delphic and 100 more...
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School Words
hagiography, antediluvian, rakish, impeccable, hackneyed, irascible, nascent, teetotaller, suffragette, amiable, expiate, turbulent and 110 more...
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just words.
coquette, solecism, peripherally, recrudescence, viscid, turpitude, sententious, light-heeled, interminably, unflappable, palpably, solicitous and 215 more...
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Favorite Words
pablum, maundy, histrionic, adamant, ascribe, verbiage, insouciant, erudite, gregarious, superfluous, banal, obdurate and 280 more...
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AP Rhetorical Devices
asyndeton, aphorism, polysyndeton, characterize, antagonist, antihero, audience, diction, foil, mood, motif, protagonist and 153 more...
We rarely practice discern
We make love to some with sin
We seek out the taciturn"
-Spoon, "That's the Way We Get By" Apr 29, 2009
The word itself comes from latin..."Tacite" if I am remembering correctly. It means "silent" in that form. (Just so ya know.) Feb 20, 2008
Mar 23, 2007