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War and Peace vocabulary
564 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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diffident
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► definition
Definition:shy because of lack of self-confidence
► uses
Uses:
he was comparatively diffident since the adventure of Wednesday.
Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (1813)
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In emergencies of this kind a diffident man could very well dispense with extremities. I should have liked to be wheeled up in a bath chair.
P. G. Wodehouse. Love Among the Chickens A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm (1909)
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“Offer to take that girl’s punishment for her. Do you know her?” I felt a certain diffidence about asking, but I really wanted to know what lay behind that quixotic gesture.
Diana Gabaldon. Outlander (1991)
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"Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?" I presently asked, with increasing diffidence.
Charles Dickens. Great Expectations (1861)
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There were diffident raps on the factory window. Derby was out there, having seen all. He wanted some syrup, too.
Kurt Vonnegut. Slaughterhouse-Five (1968)
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And he began, at first rather diffidently, but more and more carried away by the subject as he went on, to draw her attention to the various details of the decoration of his house and garden.
Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina (Translated by Constance Garnett)
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I write with great diffidence, but it seems to me that there is no unfairness in punishing people for their misfortunes, or rewarding them for their sheer good luck:
Samuel Butler. Erewhon
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“What do you want?” I asked, with awkward diffidence.
Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre (1847)
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