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reticent
in a sentence

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  • It was camp policy to give diminished and/or spoiled rations to captives suspected of withholding information, and at times the entire camp's rations were cut to punish one captive's reticence.  (source)
  • their usual reticent selves  (source)
    reticent = reluctant
  • From the outside the buildings were reticent, severe straight lines of red brick or white clapboard, with shutters standing sentinel beside each window, and...  (source)
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  • But he felt the same reticence about telling Wendy.  (source)
    reticence = reluctance -- usually to speak freely
  • Anybody meeting him there for the first time might have thought him reticent. Almost timid.  (source)
    reticent = reluctant to speak freely
  • The painter's absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious reticences—he understood them all now, and he felt sorry.†  (source)
  • They conducted their duties humbly and reticently, with a minimum of fuss, and went to great lengths not to antagonize anyone.†  (source)
    reticently = reluctantly (usually to speak freely)
  • If she was vulgar, jocular, unreticent, she was also gallant, she was full of laughter at humbugs, she was capable of a loyalty too casual and natural to seem heroic.†  (source)
    unreticent = not reluctant
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unreticent means not and reverses the meaning of reticent. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • Given Jai's reticence, I knew I had to look honestly at my motivations. Why was this talk so important to me?  (source)
    reticence = reluctance
  • He took my hand as we walked to the river, which surprised me, as he's normally reticent to show affection in public.  (source)
    reticent = reluctant
  • With her necessity for reticences, with her coldness of manner, Leonora had singularly few intimates.†  (source)
  • But the natural year followed the calendar only very reticently up here; only now, within the last few days, had spring definitely arrived, a spring without any hint of summer's oppressiveness—with spicy, light, thin air, with a radiant, silvery-blue sky and blossoming meadows as colorful as a child's paint box.†  (source)
    reticently = reluctantly (usually to speak freely)
  • ...though I saw the mysteriousness and maturity that had always made her attractive, I noticed a hint of sadness and reticence as well.  (source)
    reticence = reluctance -- usually to speak freely
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