All 5 Uses of
diffident
in
The Pathfinder, by Cooper
- But Jasper's diffidence, no less than admiration for another, would have prevented him from aspiring to the honor of complimenting any whom he thought so much his superiors.†
Chpt 11 *diffidence = hesitancy and unassertiveness due to a lack of self-confidence
- Young Jasper was on the quarter-deck, near enough to hear occasionally the conversation which passed; but too diffident of his own claim, and too intent on his duties, to attempt to mingle in it.†
Chpt 14diffident = hesitant and unassertive
- With his habitual diffidence, he reproached himself with a neglect of duty, and that knowledge, of which the want struck him as a fault in one whose business it was to possess it, appeared a merit in the young man.†
Chpt 14diffidence = hesitancy and unassertiveness due to a lack of self-confidence
- I never had a sister, and my mother died when I was a child, so that I know little what your sex most likes to hear—" Mabel would have given the world to know what lay behind the teeming word at which Jasper hesitated; but the indefinable and controlling sense of womanly diffidence made her suppress her curiosity.†
Chpt 17
- The latter continued to persuade the former that his diffidence alone prevented complete success with Mabel, and that he had only to persevere in order to prevail.†
Chpt 18
Definition:
hesitant and unassertive -- often due to a lack of self-confidence