DIFFIDENT • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Diffident

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adjective

Diffident adj.

Wanting confidence in others; distrustful. (Archaic) "You were always extremely diffident of their success."

Wanting confidence in one's self; distrustful of one's own powers; not self-reliant; timid; modest; bashful; characterized by modest reserve. "The diffident maidens, Folding their hands in prayer."

Synonyms: Distrustful; suspicious; hesitating; doubtful; modest; bashful; lowly; reserved.

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Etymology of 'Diffident'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Diffident" Quotes from Famous Books

... I have met with in the books of the Peripateticks, and the pretty experiments that have been shew'd me in the Laboratories of Chymists, I am of so diffident, or dull a Nature, as to think that if neither of them can bring more cogent arguments to evince the truth of their assertion then are wont to be brought; a Man may rationally enough retain some doubts concerning the very number of those materiall Ingredients of mixt bodies, which some ...

— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... the PANTHI. The first person I met in the boardinghouse compound was the scholarly Romesh. As though his days were quite free, he obligingly agreed to my diffident request. ...

— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... over my senses, must still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her mother's talents, and must have been under ...

— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... the night, had had beer at the Shovel, and (Nuppie and Albert being safely asleep in the second cabin) had met at supper that my instructions had been fully grasped. Thomas himself was inclined to be diffident, and had it not been for Ada would, I think, have let my offer slide. She was enthusiastic. It was she who told me of the cottage they had at Fenny Stratford, which they used as headquarters ...

— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... Scrope Berdmore Davies. Hobhouse is also very good in that line, though it is of less consequence to a man who has other ways of showing his talents than in company. Scrope was always ready and often witty—Hobhouse as witty, but not always so ready, being more diffident."—MS. ...

— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

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