diffidence

The state of being diffident, timid or shy; reticence or self-effacement.

Noun

  1. The state of being diffident, timid or shy; reticence or self-effacement.
    • Without scruple—without apology—without much apparent diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself her lover. - 1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume I, chapter 15:
    • I have the same diffidence in my feelings that most public speakers have, and am apt to think that others can speak better and more edifying than I can. - 1857, Brigham Young, Journal of Discources: Attention and...
    • "I was passing by," he began to stammer, trembling with his diffidence, "I—happened to be passing along this way, and so—er—as I was passing this way, I says to myself, says I, 'I'll just stop into the shop a minute.' -...
  2. Mistrust, distrust, lack of confidence in someone or something.
    • [Charles, King of France]: We have been guided by thee hitherto, And of thy cunning had no diffidence: One sudden foil shall never breed distrust. - 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the...
    • [...] [H]ee had brought the Parliment into ſo juſt a diffidence of him, as that they durſt not leave the Public Armes to his diſpoſal [...] - 1649, J[ohn] Milton, chapter XII, in ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […],...
    • I have no diffidence of your abilities—only be constant to one roguery at a time - 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, V.Scene the Last

Origin

From Latin diffīdentiam (“distrust”), from diffīdere (“to mistrust”), from dis- and fīdere (“to trust”). Attested since ∼1400. The original sense was antonymous with confidence, and the modern sense of ‘distrusting oneself’ dates from the 1650s.

Forms

diffidences