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''demure'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260915190735-00-⌔

demure - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

demure (comparative demurer, superlative demurest)

  • (chiefly of a woman) Modest, quiet, reserved, or serious.
    • ✤ Synonyms: retiring, shy, sober; see also Thesaurus: serious
    • ✤ She is a demure young lady.
    • ✤ Nan was very much delighted in her demure way, and that delight showed itself in her face and in her clear bright eyes.1
    • ✤ I was coming back from the ladies’ room when I saw her. She looked demure. Oval wire-rimmed glasses. A sky blue jacket buttoned over a long black-and-white flowered shirt.2
    • ✤ [H]owever hard she pushed the tough-talkin’ shtick, she remained doe-eyed, glowing and somehow unassailably demure.3
    • ✤ And in their daily lives, girls and women are pushed to conform to fairly narrow templates of behavior as demure or delicate.4
  • Affectedly modest, decorous, or serious; making a show of gravity.
    • ✤ Synonym: coy
    • ✤ Miss Lizzy, I have no doubt, would be as demure and coquettish, as if ten winters more had gone over her head.5

Verb

demure (third-person singular simple present demures, present participle demuring, simple past and past participle demured)

  • (obsolete) To look demurely.
    • ✤ Your Wife Octavia, with her modeſt eyes,/[…] ſhall acquire no Honour/Demuring vpon me:6

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English demure, demwre, an abbreviation of Anglo-Norman de mure port (“with a mature demeanor”) (compare Old French meur from Latin mātūrus):

  • si il seyt coy e de mure port (Amur curteiz) (“he sits quietly and with a mature appearance”)
  • Documents illustrating the history of Scotland, CLV, 1306, Orders for the custody of Scottish prisoners, CLV: …et que eles soient de bon et meur port (“… with a good and mature demeanor”)
  • mss. Arundel, 220: ke cely qe vus amerez soyt de gentil manere, coy, de meure porture (“with a mature demeanor”)
  • (Monastic rule): de aunciene dame de meure porture ke pusse les plus ieuenes rieueler e endoctriner (“an old lady with a mature demeanor able to rule and educate the young girls”).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /dɪˈmjʊə(ɹ)/
  • (Standard Southern British) IPA: /dəˈmjɔː(ɹ)/, /dɪˈmjɵː(ɹ)/, /dɪˈmjʊə(ɹ)/
  • (US, General American) IPA: /dɪˈmjʊɹ/, /dɪˈmjɔɹ/
  • (Australia) IPA: /dəˈmjʊə(ɹ)/
  • (New Zealand) IPA: /dəˈmjʉə(ɹ)/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Audio (Australia): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ʊə(ɹ)
  • Hyphenation: de‧mure

Printed 2026-09-15.

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Footnotes

  1. 1881, William Black, The Beautiful Wretch: ↩

  2. 2005, Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?, →ISBN, page 311: ↩

  3. 2014 January 21, Hermione Hoby, “Julia Roberts interview for August: Osage County –‘I might actually go to hell for this …’”, in The Daily Telegraph ‎: ↩

  4. 2021 June 30, Motoko Rich, Hikari Hida, “Expected to Be Demure, Japan’s Girls Face Steep Hurdles to Athletic Dreams”, in The New York Times ‎, →ISSN: ↩

  5. c. 1824, Mary Russell Mitford, Walks in the Country: ↩

  6. c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene xvi], page 363, column 2, line 30: ↩

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