Dictionaries › English

diffidence

Pronunciation: /ˈdɪfɪdəns/

The English word “diffidence” has 2 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The state of being diffident, timid or shy; reticence or self-effacement.
  2. Mistrust, distrust, lack of confidence in someone or something.

Etymology

From Latin diffīdentiam (“distrust”), from diffīdere (“to mistrust”), from dis- and fīdere (“to trust”). Attested since ∼1400. The original sense was antonymous with confidence, and the modern sense of ‘distrusting oneself’ dates from the 1650s.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “diffidence” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.