reserved
adjective
Simple meaning
Quiet and slow to share your feelings.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rihzurvdSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɹɪˈzɝvd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
not comparable
Set aside for the use of a particular person or party
not comparable
Set aside for a particular person or purpose; spoken for.
comparable
Slow to reveal emotion or opinions.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Set aside for the use of a particular person or party
Used this way, reserved is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use reserved
- “Was habitually reserved in speech, withholding her opinion"-Victoria Sackville-West.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Hold back or set aside, especially for future use or contingency.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A district that is reserved for particular purpose.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: set aside for the use of a particular person
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.