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What is "self-effacing"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
self-effacing
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Her husband was a quiet, self-effacing man who spent much of his time in his study.
▪ In those days women were expected to be quiet, passive and self-effacing.
▪ Jack faced this minor crisis with typical self-effacing humor.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A shy, self-effacing man, Williams was self-taught, and showed an independent and determined intellectual curiosity.
▪ As a race the Brits may sometimes be too self-effacing for our own good.
▪ But regarding 2 this teacher was not especially charismatic - in fact more self-effacing than naturally the centre of attention.
▪ Most guitarists know people who can outplay them in some way and so most register somewhere on the meek and self-effacing scale.
▪ Physically attractive and possessed of considerable personal charm, his demeanour was self-effacing, gracious and polite.
▪ Purple sandpipers arc the most self-effacing of birds.
▪ She'd been almost too self-effacing, he thought.
▪ They were brilliant, self-effacing men.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
self-effacing

1902, from self- + effacing (see efface). Self-effacement is recorded from 1866.

Wiktionary
self-effacing

a. shy, extremely humble and modest; making oneself seem unnoticeable.

WordNet
self-effacing

adj. reluctant to draw attention to yourself [syn: reticent]

Usage examples of "self-effacing".

CHAPTER FOUR Two days later Prudence was sitting in the drawing-room with her aunts, who were entertaining two friends to coffee--an old lady, tall and thin and beaky-nosed, who, she felt sure, disapproved of her on sight, and a slightly younger lady, very self-effacing and speaking only when spoken to.

The conversation was terribly stilted and carried on mostly by the old lady in Dutch, although from time to time she addressed herself to Prudence, but as her remarks were for the most part searching questions about her work, home life and family, which Prudence answered politely but briefly, she gave up and began a lengthy conversation with Aunt Emma and Aunt Beatrix, which left Prudence stranded with the self-effacing lady, who spoke rather less English than Prudence did Dutch.

Judith had not chosen to dress in the piously self-effacing manner that most communicants of this cult preferred.

Here was a brilliant man of science, humble and self-effacing, naive to the point of childlikeness, warm, personable, and unforgettable.

To Quellen’s surprise, Judith had not chosen to dress in the piously self-effacing manner that most communicants of this cult preferred.

Self-effacing, somewhat shy, Harlo had not labored on the car with the hope either that it would be a babe magnet or that those who had thought of him as tepid would suddenly think he was cool enough to freeze the mercury in a thermometer.

She is self-effacing and downplays all her accomplishments past the point of modesty.

And in the meantime we became closer, not because he was such a good writer -- I'm not so self-effacing I like hanging around with people who can write me under the table -- but because he was Doc Murphy.

Chantelle allowed herself just a few appearances with some of the more important interviewers, where she was immediately humble, self-effacing, and just delighted to be able to do her small bit to make this very special day a success.

The courtesy and self-effacing manners of the Hrrubans were considerably more in the metropologist's manner than Reeve's.

He wanted to calm Orr down, to get him back into his normal self-effacing state, in which he would lack the courage to say anything about his dream powers in front of the third person.