''retiring'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904134559-00-⌔

retiring - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

retiring

• introverted, liking privacy and seclusion.
  • ✤ I don’t really know him well, since he’s so shy and retiring.
  • ✤ My uncle, as I can remember, was retiring in his disposition, scarcely ever visiting any one and not more frequently receiving any visitors.¹
  • ✤ Lester was in the thick of social and commercial affairs; he walked in paths to which Jennie’s retiring soul had never aspired.²

Verb

retiring

• present participle and gerund of retire
  • ✤ Today is the party for our retiring co-workers.

Noun

retiring (plural retirings)

• retirement
  • ✤ One day of those his retirings${}^{[sic]}$, giving out that he was sick, his father Antigonus came on the sudden to visit him, and met a fair dainty youth coming out of his chamber.³

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɹəˈtaɪ(ə)ɹɪŋ/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -aɪəɹɪŋ

Printed 2026-09-04.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1861, E. J. Guerin, Mountain Charley, page 10: ↩

2. 1911, Theodore Dreiser, chapter LX, in Jennie Gerhardt ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

3. 1625, Francis[Bacon], Apophthegmes New and Old. […], London: […] Hanna Barret, and Richard Whittaker, […], →OCLC: ↩