Word.ws English Dictionary

demure

Syllables: de·mureUK/dɪˈmjʊə(ɹ)/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/dəˈmjɔː(ɹ)/

demure adjective: modest, quiet, reserved, or serious.

Adjective

demure (comparative demurer, superlative demurest)

  1. Modest, quiet, reserved, or 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.1881, William Black, The Beautiful Wretch
  2. Affectedly modest, decorous, or serious; making a show of gravity.
    • Miss Lizzy, I have no doubt, would be as demure and coquettish, as if ten winters more had gone over her head.c. 1824, Mary Russell Mitford, Walks in the Country
    Synonyms:
    coy

Verb

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

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

demure meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

demure in Urdu

محجوب

demure in Bengali

demure, rebuke, disagreement, reproval, censure, opposition, enmity, criticism
এতেরাজ eteraz

demure in Malayalam

ലജ്ജയും അടക്കവുമുളള, ശാലീനമായ, സ്ഥിരബുദ്ധിയായ

demure in Kannada

ಸೌಮ್ಯ, ಲಜ್ಜಾವಂತ, ಶ್ರೀಮದ್ಗಾಂಭೀರ್ಯದ, ಸಿಗ್ಗಿನ, ತಣಿಯ

Examples of demure in a sentence

  • [H]owever hard she pushed the tough-talkin' shtick, she remained doe-eyed, glowing and somehow unassailably demure.2014 January 21, Hermione Hoby, “Julia Roberts interview for August: Osage County – 'I might actually go to hell for this …'”, in The Daily...
  • And in their daily lives, girls and women are pushed to conform to fairly narrow templates of behavior as demure or delicate.2021 June 30, Motoko Rich, Hikari Hida, “Expected to Be Demure, Japan’s Girls Face Steep Hurdles to Athletic Dreams”, in The New York...

All 18 example sentences with demure

Synonyms of demure

15 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of demure

Forms of demure

Adjective
comparativedemurer
superlativedemurest
Verb
third-person singular presentdemures
present participledemuring
past participledemured
pastdemured

Origin of demure

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”).

Words formed from demure

Phrases with demure

Words that rhyme with demure

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about demure

What does demure mean?
Demure means modest, quiet, reserved, or serious.
What is demure in Urdu?
Demure in Urdu is محجوب. See Demure meaning in Urdu.
How do you use demure in a sentence?
[H]owever hard she pushed the tough-talkin' shtick, she remained doe-eyed, glowing and somehow unassailably demure.
What part of speech is demure?
Demure can be an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce demure?
Demure is pronounced /dɪˈmjʊə(ɹ)/ (UK).

Words near demure in the dictionary

  1. demultiplication
  2. demultiplications
  3. DeMunck
  4. DeMuncks
  5. demur
  6. demure
  7. demure as a whore at a christening
  8. demured
  9. demurely
  10. demureness
  11. demurenesses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: demure (page history and authors); demure (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); এতেরাজ (Bengali) (page history and authors); demure (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); demure (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-demure.ogg, en-au-demure.ogg.

Cite this entry: “demure.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/demure. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.