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/mˈɑdəsti/ Listen

noun

Modesty n.

The quality or state of being modest; that lowly temper which accompanies a moderate estimate of one's own worth and importance; absence of self-assertion, arrogance, and presumption; humility respecting one's own merit.

Natural delicacy or shame regarding personal charms and the sexual relation; purity of thought and manners; due regard for propriety in speech or action. "Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty."

Modesty piece, a narrow piece of lace worn by women over the bosom. (Obs.)

Synonyms: Bashfulness; humility; diffidence; shyness. See Bashfulness, and Humility.

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Etymology of 'Modesty'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Modesty" Quotes from Famous Books

... the same likewise, if we sought for them in any other of our Authors besides our British HOMER, Shakespeare. This Description of the Condition of Conspirators has a Pomp and Terror in it, that perfectly astonishes. Our excellent Mr. Addison, whose Modesty made him sometimes diffident in his own Genius, but whose exquisite Judgment always led him to the safest Guides, as we may see by those many fine Strokes in his Cato borrow'd from the Philippics of Cicero, has paraphrased this fine Description; but we are no longer to expect those terrible ...

— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald

... line, a lady with him, and came to him. Clyde, too, was flushed with the strangeness of it all, and the joyous certainty that now for an evening, if only that, Nellie Lake was with him. The colonel looked at her and looked again, and she dropped her eyes in a pretty, serious modesty. ...

— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... of shyness and modesty suddenly fell around Faith. Even her head drooped. But Mr. Linden's lips touched the fair brow between those ...

— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... she had replied to the first questions with graceful modesty, fixing her wickedly guileless eyes upon the officials seated behind the presidential table, and on those other men in blue uniform, charged with accusing her or reading the documents of ...

— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... this time, remarkable if becoming. It was all white, and cut wedge-shaped in front, very deep; but an undervest of crimson crossed the V in the midst and saved her modesty, and his. Her hair, which was long, was plaited in two plaits with seed-pearls, brought round her neck like a scarf and the two ends joined between her breasts, thus defining a great beauty of ...

— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

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