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self-effacing
in a sentence

show 37 more with this conextual meaning
  • He was trying to be self-effacing.†   (source)
  • It was not an easy task: her soulher sad, timid, self-effacing soullay concealed in the depths of her bowels and was ashamed to show itself.†   (source)
  • But when I reflect back on my surgical training, I'm indebted to a small, dark man, a self-effacing surgeon whom the world might never celebrate.†   (source)
  • Totally out of character, but in case anyone should ever refer to them, he had better restudy the "facts" so he could at least nod in self-effacing modesty.†   (source)
  • Attolia saw his smile, without any hint of self-effacement or flattery or opportunism, a smile wholly unlike that of any member of her court, and she hit him across the face with her open hand.†   (source)
  • As lovely a woman as I have ever seen, bred and nurtured like a gardenia, she has always seemed somehow odorless and sexless to me. yet viscerally seductive in the manner of Southern women, that taloned species who speak with restrained and self-effacing drawls, fill a room with elegance and vulnerability, move with the grace of wind-tilted cane, and rule their families with a secret pact of steel.†   (source)
  • She had so seldom thought of her mother, that sweet dim self-effacing soul, and now for a moment she could only think of her mother's elegant expressive pianist's hands, strong-fingered, at once supple and gentle, like one of the Chopin nocturnes she played, the ivory skin reminding her of the muted white of lilacs.†   (source)
  • The only reason for that which she put into words, to be self-effacing, was that the Raineys were Methodists; and yet she did not, basically, understand a slight.†   (source)
  • He glanced up and dared a self-effacing smile.†   (source)
  • I tried to make it sound self-effacing—yet another thing I'm not good at—but the detectives weren't biting.†   (source)
  • I thought he might shift from the self-effacing Abnegation leader to the nightmare I knew at home, that he might lash out and reveal himself for who he is.†   (source)
  • He was funny, candid, self-effacing.†   (source)
  • We all learned things from that extraordinary mind, the finest in our profession, yet so self-effacing, so … je ne sais quoi … so 'why not try it,' yes?†   (source)
  • And when they do describe a distinctive trait of his, it's always the same: Ira's total silence, his self-effacement: "Ira was very shy," Buddy Lewis told me.†   (source)
  • George, the black bartender, was dispensing drinks with all the self-effacing joviality required of his station.†   (source)
  • In a voice that trembled with agony and hatred, and once again with despair, the frail and self-effacing woman shouted out to us: "Get them, boys.†   (source)
  • But he knew that she was enormously aware of him in her silent, self-effacing way.†   (source)
  • But some people, under a nervous and self-effacing manner, conceal a great deal of vanity and self-satisfaction.†   (source)
  • She reminds me of my mother; what I loved most in Mother was her self-effacement, her 'dimness,' as they say, and it's she I've always wanted to get back to.†   (source)
  • However, whenever his eyes met David's father's, the expression on his face tended to freeze into one of ingratiating self-effacement.†   (source)
  • She was seeing through Rhett's eyes the passing, not of a woman but of a legend—the gentle, self-effacing but steel-spined women on whom the South had builded its house in war and to whose proud and loving arms it had returned in defeat.†   (source)
  • Tarrou lays stress above all on Mme. Rieux's self-effacement, her way of explaining things in the simplest possible words, her predilection for a special window at which she always sat in the early evening, holding herself rather straight, her hands at rest, her eyes fixed on the quiet street below, until twilight filled the room and she showed among the gathering shadows as a motionless black form which gradually merged into the invading darkness.†   (source)
  • He had had an astute business manager, a mild, self-effacing little man of iron who, in the days of his glory, faced quietly the storms of Cameron's temper and brought him clients; Cameron insulted the clients, but the little man made them accept it and come back.†   (source)
  • Around Melanie's tactful and self-effacing person, there rapidly grew up a clique of young and old who represented what was left of the best of Atlanta's ante-bellum society, all poor in purse, all proud in family, die-hards of the stoutest variety.†   (source)
  • This self-effacement in both directions had been quite in consonance with her independent character of desiring nothing by way of favour or pity to which she was not entitled on a fair consideration of her deserts.†   (source)
  • "I wouldn't ever have it said that I stood in the way of a poor girl like Mattie marrying a smart fellow like Denis Eady," Zeena answered in a tone of plaintive self-effacement.†   (source)
  • At half-past ten Tibby, with rare self-effacement, fell asleep, and Margaret was able to drive her aunt to the station.†   (source)
  • A solitude was tacitly created for her in the crowded existence of Bellomont, and her friends could not have shown a greater readiness for self-effacement had her wooing been adorned with all the attributes of romance.†   (source)
  • The secret of life was literally bottomless, and it was no wonder, then, that occasionally there rose up out of it illusions that—and so on and so forth, in our hero's amiably self-effacing and exceedingly easy manner.†   (source)
  • …the impression of a very energetic, prudent, and—despite his elegance—cold, practical man of business; but when traveling in regions whose customs were strange to him, in the south of Germany, for instance, he was all too quick to be polite and self-effacing and assumed a certain impetuous amiability, which was in no way the result of insecurity about his own culture, but on the contrary reflected both an awareness of its solid integrity and a desire to improve on his own aristocratic…†   (source)
  • Never had this woman, who was such a fateful influence in his life, aroused such love in his breast, such new and unknown feeling, surprising even to himself, a feeling tender to devoutness, to self-effacement before her!†   (source)
  • If she had been told she was in love, she would have been a good deal surprised; for she had an idea that love was an eager and exacting passion, and her own heart was filled in these days with the impulse of self-effacement and sacrifice.†   (source)
  • The old instinct of deference and humility was there; the habit of decent self-effacement and knowledge of her "own place."†   (source)
  • The humble, self-effacing Charlie you were all talking about a while ago is just waiting patiently.   (source)
    self-effacing = modest and reluctant to draw attention to oneself
  • I'll admit I'm like him in a number of ways, but humility and self-effacement are not among them.   (source)
    self-effacement = modest and reluctant to draw attention to yourself
  • I had been demure, genteel, intelligent but self-effacing, well groomed, and quietly dressed—everything the Perfect Don's Wife should be.†   (source)
  • For once, I was pleased to be modestly self-effacing, scrunching back into the corner and leaving Jamie to deal with the rough teasing and bawdy speculations about what we had been doing all day.†   (source)
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