| 释义 |
reticence, n.|ˈrɛtɪsəns|
Also 7, 9 -ense.
[a. F. reticence (= Sp. and Pg. reticencia, It. reticenza), or ad. L. reticentia, f. reticēre to keep silence: see -ence.]
Maintenance of silence; avoidance of saying too much or of speaking freely; disposition to say little.
Not in common use until after 1830.
1603Holland Plutarch's Mor. 841 (R.), Many times, I wis, a smile, a reticence or keeping silence, may well express a speech, and make it more emphatical. 1656Blount Glossogr., Reticence, silence, concealment, councel-keeping, when one holds his peace, and utters not the thing he should tell. 1706Phillips (ed. Kersey), Reticence, a Rhetorical Figure, when something is conceal'd that ought to be declar'd; Concealment, or passing over in Silence. 1831Carlyle Sart. Res. ii. x, A man so known for impenetrable reticence as Teufelsdröckh. 1865Trollope Belton Est. xii. 130 That frankness of hers had not been successful, and she regretted that she had not imposed on herself some little reticence. 1884J. Tait Mind in Matter (1892) 8 Divine wisdom betrays itself by reticence about the unseen world.
fig.1873Stevenson Ess. Trav., Roads (1905) 233 We learn,..through one coquettish reticence after another,..the whole loveliness of the country. 1875Swinburne Ess. & Stud. 277 The Lac de Gaube,..with a strange attraction for the swimmer in its cold smooth reticence and breathless calm.
b. Const. of (the thing kept back). Also fig.
1838Sir W. Hamilton Logic xx. (1866) I. 391 On no principle can it be shown, that our modern logicians are correct in denying or not contemplating the possibility of the reticence of the conclusion [of a syllogism]. 1856Miss Mulock J. Halifax i, My father and I both glanced round, surprised at her unusual reticence of epithets. 1868Swinburne Ess. & Stud. (1875) 363 The same breadth and subtlety of touch, the same noble reticence of colour.
c. pl. Instances of silence or reserve.
1814W. Taylor in Robberd Mem. (1843) II. 449, I need not dwell on the judicious selection of matter..or on the decorous purity of his very reticences. 1833Fraser's Mag. VII. 550 This naughty flower-scene..is among his lordship's reticenses. 1878Morley Carlyle, Crit. Misc. Ser. i. 185 The reticences of men are often only less full of meaning than their most pregnant speech.
Hence ˈreticence v., to pass over in silence.
1833Fraser's Mag. VII. 532 Some choice passages..which from other motives he had purposely reticensed. |