3 uses
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Definition
polite respect — often when submitting to another's wishes
- She had altered her values in deference to the opinion of others.4 (80% in)
deference = polite respect
- The whole structure, therefore, of the early nineteenth-century novel was raised, if one was a woman, by a mind which was slightly pulled from the straight, and made to alter its clear vision in deference to external authority.4 (78% in)
- But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and chastity which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.6 (59% in)
There are no more uses of "deference" in A Room of One's Own.
Typical Usage
(best examples)