diffident

This is the reason why all men are fearful; why the whole human race are diffident.

Be diffident of whimsical or pleasing ideas, which you are rather apt to be readily seduced by.

I joined him because I knew that by himself he would be too diffident to carry out his own plans.

She spoke with diffident slowness, her gaze fastened upon her plate.

A shudder passed through the room, followed by a diffident laugh.

He had always been the center of things, and he was not diffident, as a rule, in his approaches toward friendship.

Of diffident and retiring manners, he devoted his days to experiments and improvements in the arts and sciences.

Others were boyish and diffident, and with them she got on pretty well.

There is only one thing he lacks,” he said to himself, “he would be a man in a thousand, but he is too diffident.

And the word "schooled" recalled to him the diffident woman he had met at Stephen Jannan's, the night before.