reticencyn.

a1617 P. Baynes Comm. Epist. First Chapter Paul to Ephesians (1618) 157 The words haue a rhetoricall reticency in them, and are thus laid down.

1652 J. Gaule Πυς-μαντια 51 Wherefore then use they so manifold..obscurities, insignificancies, reticencies.

1662 G. Lawson Expos. Epist. Hebrewes 94 The perpetuity is concluded from the reticency and silence of the Text: This was the onely place in the Scriptures of the Old Testament where any mention is made of this Person.

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. Reticency,..a Figure in Rhetoric, whereby we make oblique mention of a thing, in pretending to pass it over unmentioned.

1773 tr. J. A. Dumay New & Faithful Transl. Lett. to Mr. Kennicott iii. 63 The true Hebraist..sees at first the reticency, and looks from whence to supply what is wanting.

1815 W. Taylor in Monthly Rev. 78 19 Brooke pointed out numberless inaccuracies, which Camden corrected with illiberal reticency.

1852 To-day 3 Jan. 4/2 I am grateful to my own reticency of character, that I confided to no one the deplorable folly that I recorded in these last pages.

1889 R. L. Stevenson Master of Ballantrae vi. 165 That unhappy and secretive fault of reticency.

1923 Hispania 6 353 He attempts conversation in a foreign tongue with great trepidation and reticency.

1959 E. J. Goodspeed Matthew 95 Are we not struck by the reticencies of Matthew?

2000 R.-I. Heinze Nature & Function of Rituals 187 When the conversations came to ritual sacrifices, such as animal sacrifices, again there was a general reticency to talk about this topic.