timidity

• But yet his behaviour on many trying occasions effectually vindicate him from the charge of timidity, and showed that the unwillingness to shed blood, by which he was peculiarly distinguished, arose from benevolence, not from pusillanimity Upon the scaffold, he behaved with the firmness which became a noble spirit, and the patience beseeming one who was reconciled to heaven. —  Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs
• Field was anything but a timid man, he had been in too many tight places in his life to know the meaning of the word timidity, but then he had to exercise a certain discretion At the same time he was not blind to the fact that his military ally was in considerable danger. —  The Slave of Silence
• For who can save himself from his own timidity, and who can protect himself from his own courage Given that little spur of initiative, that little armor of selfish indifference to the clinging hands at home, and how many a soul might not have reached the stars? —  The Best Short Stories of 1920 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
• A great timidity, almost amounting to terror, came over her. —  Agatha's Husband A Novel
• The mere thought of asserting themselves, of putting forward their views or opinions on any subject as being worthy of attention, or as valuable as those of their companions, makes them blush and shrink more into themselves This timidity is often, however, not so much the fear of one's audience, as the fear lest one can make no suitable expression of his thought The hardest thing for the public speaker to overcome is self-consciousness. —  Pushing to the Front

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context