Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Not disposed to expressions of feeling; reserved.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not demonstrative or given to excited or strong expression of feeling; reserved, from modesty, diffidence, or policy: as, an undemonstrative person; undemonstrative manners.
Wiktionary
WordNet 3.0
- adj. not given to open expression of emotion
Examples
“Even when it is a practical, living thing that can be felt and built on, it is often almost cold-bloodedly inarticulate and undemonstrative, which is the only kind of sympathy acceptable to a man in trouble, especially a man of Druro's type, who did not want to discuss the thing at all, but just to take what was coming to him with a stiff lip.”
“Their son, John, who was ten at the time of his mother's first psychiatric hospitalization, found his father, the man who was then revered as "America's doctor," to be "undemonstrative" and someone who made him feel "judged, criticized, scared [and] beaten down.”
“Clean-cut Hurts duo Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson are aiming for a kind of undemonstrative Pet Shop Boys studiousness in their personal presentation, reflected in the well-manicured lines of their classy pop songs.”
“He seemed to believe, in an undemonstrative sort of way, that elections were consequential events in the life of a country, and that however puerile and disingenuous campaigns could be, their purpose was important.”
“I am not generally a flag-waving hand-on-heart type of guy; my patriotism is quieter, just about silent and always most undemonstrative.”
The Huffington Post: William Fisher: The Fall and Rise of a Lovely Day
“He was a kindly, easy-going man; but, after the way of a large percentage of the Western stock, he was undemonstrative.”
“The undemonstrative Kessel packed 30 goals into 63 games before falling back at the end (no goals in his final six starts).”
“Or maybe the generally undemonstrative Manning, who swore he wasn't a 25-interception quarterback last year, has more moxie than he's credited for.”
“Both Pires and Meneses are undemonstrative players who prefer muscular energy to flamboyant gesture, purity to rhetoric.”
The Guardian: Antonio Meneses and Maria João Pires; La traviata – review
“Instead, he retired into himself, became sullen, undemonstrative, and, though he never cowered in defeat, and though he was always ready to snarl and bristle his hair in advertisement that inside he was himself and unconquered, he no longer burst out in furious anger.”
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