Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun 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.
  • noun In rhetoric, aposiopesis.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun 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.
  • noun (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.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun tight-lippedness, discretion, avoidance of saying too much
  • noun a silent and reserved nature

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the trait of being uncommunicative; not volunteering anything more than necessary

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin reticentia, from reticēre

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Examples

  • Humphrey is particularly eloquent in speaking of that root among our other sins of helplessness which he calls reticence.

    THE DIFFERENT DRUM M. SCOTT PECK 1987

  • Humphrey is particularly eloquent in speaking of that root among our other sins of helplessness which he calls reticence.

    THE DIFFERENT DRUM M. SCOTT PECK 1987

  • That which we call reticence is more frequently an inability than an unwillingness to express itself.

    Kept in the Dark Anthony Trollope 1848

  • This reticence is understandable when one sees the way politicians use faith, or religions play the game of politics.

    Don't say 'social justice' 2010

  • "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."

    Volkswagen May Delay Porsche Merger Christoph Rauwald 2010

  • You know my reticence is for an entirely different reason.

    Hunger Moon: Chapter Twenty-Nine amberfocus 2009

  • 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 2009

  • 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.

    The Empty Family by Colm Tóibín – Review Hermione Lee 2010

  • The main reason for that reticence is that European public opinion strongly favors doing nothing.

    A Song We Can Believe In (or at least hum) 2008

  • The main reason for that reticence is that European public opinion strongly favors doing nothing.

    Stromata Blog: 2008

Comments

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  • 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

    June 23, 2008