All 4 Uses of
diffident
in
Light in August
- It is not diffidence, shyness.†
Chpt 1 *diffidence = hesitancy and unassertiveness due to a lack of self-confidence
- This was the note upon which Byron's calls usually opened: this faintly overbearing note of levity and warmth to put the other at his ease, and on the part of the caller that slow and countrybred diffidence which is courtesy.†
Chpt 13
- They enter not with diffidence, but with something puppetlike about them, as if they were operated by clumsy springwork.†
Chpt 16
- She knew that just as she knew that he was now standing with a kind of clumsy and diffident awe above her and the sleeping child.†
Chpt 18diffident = hesitant and unassertive
Definition:
hesitant and unassertive -- often due to a lack of self-confidence