5 uses
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Definition
hesitant and unassertive — often due to a lack of self-confidence
- I asked, with awkward diffidence.Chapter 1 (55% in)
- Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor's face: there was penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready and round answers.Chapter 27 (67% in)
- There was an unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto kept it averted from the stranger.Chapter 29 (65% in)
- Rivers," I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he looked at me, openly and without diffidence, "you and your sisters have done me a great service — the greatest man can do his fellowbeing; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death.Chapter 29 (80% in)
- "What affectation of diffidence was this at first?" they might have demanded; "what stupid regardlessness now?"Chapter 36 (41% in)
There are no more uses of "diffident" in Jane Eyre.
Typical Usage
(best examples)