Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use reticence in a sentence

13 example sentences · noun, verb

Reticence means avoidance of saying or reluctance to say too much; discretion, tight-lippedness; (countable) an instance of acting in this manner. Example: “The expense of maintaining these collections, as well as the reticence of sponsors to finance such activities, are perhaps the most important factors affecting this erosion.”

Examples of reticence by meaning

nounOften followed by to: hesitancy or reluctance (to do something).

  • The expense of maintaining these collections, as well as the reticence of sponsors to finance such activities, are perhaps the most important factors affecting this erosion.2000, Mario A. Monge, Rubén Guevara, “Coffee”, in Agriculture in Alliance with Nature: CATIE’s Recent Advances in Breeding and Conservation...
  • This reputation is sealed by their public display of shame, as manifest in a reticense towards appearing in public places.2002, Jon P. Mitchell, Ambivalent Europeans: Ritual, Memory and the Public Sphere in Malta, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page...
  • Any reticence or wariness I felt for the Professor vanished the moment I saw him with my son, and from that point on I trusted him completely.2009, Yoko Ogawa, chapter 2, in Stephen Snyder, transl., The Housekeeper and the Professor, New York, N.Y.: Picador, →ISBN, pages 26–27

verbTo deliberately not listen or pay attention to; to disregard, to ignore.

  • It was because he didn't think he'd be recognized that he so ostentatiously lay in ambush—lost and shrouded, a burrowed lay-low, a smoke screen, anonymous, covert, sequestered, disguised and reticenced and secluded, an inference, a stowaway.1985, Stanley Elkin, Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom, New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton, →ISBN, page 135

More sentences with reticence

  • One of the signs of Saussure's progressing reticence was what he himself called his epistolophobia or graphophobia.2012, Boris Gasparov, Beyond Pure Reason: Ferdinand de Saussure's Philosophy of Language and Its Early Romantic Antecedents, Columbia…. From the entry epistolophobia
  • The compressed lips suggest his principled reticence, his practice of keeping his own counsel.2002 October 11, Verlyn Klinkenborg, “Editorial Observer: Moral Perfection and the Incorrigible Franklin”, in New York Times, retrieved 25…. From the entry keep one's own counsel
  • But she had a fastidiousness, a certain personal reticence, that he respected.1952, Daphne Du Maurier, “Monte Verità”, in The Apple Tree. From the entry fastidiousness
  • The studied reticence of the poems in quatrains is opposed to the more confessional aspects of the monologue.1991, Manju Jain, A critical reading of the selected poems of T.S. Eliot, page 77. From the entry confessional
  • Then, impelled to some gesture, he raised his voice and in one of his first basso notes called boomingly and without reticence for the waiter.1928 July 28, F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Basil: The Freshest Boy”, in The Saturday Evening Post. From the entry boomingly
  • I feel content,” continued Oriana whose physical and spiritual pain had by now removed any barrier of reticence in the extrinsication of her true feelings for the other.2013, Rita Petrini, The Woman with a Hat Full of Cherries, page 542. From the entry extrinsication
  • The former feels emotionally secure only when they can Talmudize the laws and mores of their host environment; the latter by their reticence on outside matters.2006, Nicholas C. Eliopoulos, Gypsy Council, page 442. From the entry Talmudize
  • Nor can federal AIDS educators bring themselves to mention the c word, condom, a strange reticence not shared by any other Western government except that of Catholic Ireland.1990 Jan., “Condom Conundrum: How the World is Selling Safe Sex”, in Mother Jones Magazine, page 42. From the entry c-word
  • Among those smooth-talkers who allow the name of God to fall trippingly from their tongues, glibness is underrated as a vice and reticence is underrated as a virtue.1981 March 11, Roy Larson, “God the ‘Wholly Other’”, in The Herald-News, volume 110, number 69, page A-10. From the entry smooth-talker

Meaning of reticence

  1. noun Avoidance of saying or reluctance to say too much; discretion, tight-lippedness; (countable) an instance of acting in this manner.
  2. noun A silent and reserved nature.
  3. noun Followed by of: discretion or restraint in the use of something.

Full definition of reticence

Questions about reticence in a sentence

How do you use reticence in a sentence?
Reticence is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The expense of maintaining these collections, as well as the reticence of sponsors to finance such activities, are perhaps the most important factors affecting this erosion.”
What is a short sentence with reticence?
“But she had a fastidiousness, a certain personal reticence, that he respected.”
What does reticence mean?
Reticence means avoidance of saying or reluctance to say too much; discretion, tight-lippedness; (countable) an instance of acting in this manner.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reticence (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use reticence in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/reticence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.