reticent
adjective
Simple meaning
Unwilling to communicate.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rehtihsuhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹɛtɪsənt
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
Unwilling to communicate; keeping one's thoughts and opinions to oneself; reserved or restrained.
proscribed
Hesitant or not wanting to take some action; reluctant (usually followed by a verb in the infinitive).
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Unwilling to communicate; keeping one's thoughts and opinions to oneself; reserved or restrained.
Used this way, reticent is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It keeps things gentle rather than emphatic.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Reluctant or hesitant
- Usage feel
- Understated and gentle
Nearby words
- undemonstrative , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: unwilling to communicate
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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.