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''diffident'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904152658-00-⌔

diffident - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

diffident (comparative more diffident, superlative most diffident)

  • (archaic) Lacking confidence in others; distrustful.
  • Lacking self-confidence; timid; modest
    • ✤ Synonyms: timid, modest
    • ✤ Having therefore—but hold, as we are diffident of our own abilities, let us here invite a superior power to our assistance.1
    • ✤ Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident.2
    • ✤ At an early point in these exchanges I had started to sidle to the door, and I now sidled through it, rather like a diffident crab on some sandy beach trying to avoid the attentions of a child with a spade.3

Etymology

From Latin diffīdentem, present participle of diffīdere (“to mistrust”). Doublet of defiant.

Pronunciation

  • enPR: dĭf′ĭ-dənt, dĭf′ĭ-dĕnt″
  • IPA: /ˈdɪfɪdənt/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Hyphenation: dif‧fi‧dent

Printed 2026-09-04.

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Footnotes

  1. 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VIII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book IV: ↩

  2. 1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume I, chapter 5: ↩

  3. 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VIII: ↩

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