reticences

Noun

reticence (countable and uncountable, plural reticences)

1. (also, figuratively, uncountable) Avoidance of saying or reluctance to say too much; discretion, tight-lippedness; (countable) an instance of acting in this manner.
   • [Y]ou paſſe ouer their teſtimonies, & his whole diſcourſe out of them, with a fraudulent reticence of the particulars, and thinke to be euen with them, making vp by ſcoffing, what you cannot by arguing, [...]1640, I. S. [pseudonym; John Price], “Of the Great Reuerence of Ancient Christian Emperors and Kings to the Pope”, in Anti-Mortonvs or An Apology in Defence of the Church of Rome. Against the Grand...

   Synonyms:

   reserve, taciturnity

2. (uncountable) A silent and reserved nature.
   • The determined reticence of Jasper, however, was not to be so approached. Impassive, moody, solitary, resolute, so concentrated on one idea, and on its attendant fixed purpose, that he would share it with no fellow-creature, he lived apart from human life.1870 April–September, Charles Dickens, “The Dawn Again”, in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1870, →OCLC, page 178

   Synonyms:

   introversion, reservation, bashfulness, demureness, diffidence, reluctance, quietness, shyness, sheepishness, timidity

   Antonyms:

   ostentation, chattiness, diarrhea of the mouth, garrulity, garrulousness, logorrhea, logorrhoea, loquaciousness, loquacity, multiloquence

3. (uncountable) Followed by of: discretion or restraint in the use of something.
   • This is the reticence of temperament, and we see it in children from quite an early age—those children who are trusted by the servants, and are their favourites in consequence, because they tell no tales; but it is a disposition that may become dangerous unless watched, and that is always liable to...1870 May 21, “The Art of Reticence”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume XXIX, number 760, London: […] Spottiswoode and Co., […], →OCLC, page 667, column 2
4. (proscribed, uncountable) Often followed by to: hesitancy or reluctance (to do something).
   • According to Anthony & Astorga (1997), the CATIE collection suffers the loss of some 250 individuals every year, which amounts to a general genetic erosion rate of 3% (4.8% for the wild genotypes). The expense of maintaining these collections, as well as the reticence of sponsors to finance such...2000, Mario A. Monge, Rubén Guevara, “Coffee”, in Agriculture in Alliance with Nature: CATIE’s Recent Advances in Breeding and Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources (Serie Técnica, Informe Técnico...

   Synonyms:

   disinclination, hesitation

5. (obsolete, rhetoric) Synonym of aposiopesis (“an abrupt breaking-off in speech”).
   • If the Comteſſe de la Motte, contented to load me with opprobrious language, and to make uſe of inſidious reticences, does not accept of this formal challenge, I muſt declare to her, once for all, that I ſhall give to all her reticences, to all her obloquy, paſt, preſent, and to come, an anſwer...1786, Comte de Cagliostro [i.e., Alessandro Cagliostro]; Parkyns Macmahon, “Refutation of Madame de la Motte’s Memorial in that Part which Concerns the Comte de Cagliostro”, in Memorial, or Brief...

   Synonyms:

   aposiopesis

See all 6 meanings of reticence