retiring
/rɪˈtʌɪərɪŋ
/adjective
Shy and fond of being on one’s own: a retiring, acquiescent woman...
- His tasteful interpretations never force the music into being something that it is not, and his temperament is well matched to that of the retiring and modest composer.
- He was a very modest and retiring man and he was the sort of man who, as I say in the book, was easy to forget.
- Toy was a quiet and retiring man focused on the local church and missions.
Synonyms
shy, diffident, bashful, self-effacing, shrinking, unassuming, unassertive, reserved, reticent, quiet, timid, timorous, nervous, modest, demure, coy, meek, humble;
private, secret, secretive, withdrawn, reclusive, media-shy, unsociable
rare seclusive, eremitic, eremitical, hermitic, anchoritic
Derivatives
retiringly
- Mathis falls retiringly into the seat opposite her.
- A newspaperman wrote in 1839 that Springfield contained "a throng of stores, taverns, and shops. .. and an agreeable assemblage of dwelling houses very neatly painted, most of them white, and situated somewhat retiringly behind tasteful frontyards."
- In a white house with a green door on the outskirts of a village in the Vosges is living, almost as retiringly as a hermit, a woman who only a few years ago was one of the best known, gayest and most talked-of actresses in Paris.