self-effacingadj.

1854 Lit. Suppl. Atlas 28 Jan. 1/1 What a page in the annals of the world of the sublimest devotion and of the most ferocious cruelty..of the most self-effacing patriotism, and of the most revolting tyranny!

1887 Murray's Mag. Nov. 707 Grown into the most patient, most self-effacing of women, she reverted a little here.

a1898 J. Caird Univ. Lect. (1898) 164 He was..the most self-effacing of men.

1902 ‘H. S. Merriman’ Vultures vi. 50 Miss Netty Cahere was a vision of pink and self-effacing quietness.

1987 T. Forester High-tech Society (1989) iii. 66 The normally self-effacing Japanese are so confident..that they are predicting that they will completely control the market.

2010 Vanity Fair Nov. 116/2 As he speaks..he is by turns grandiose and humble, self-righteous and self-effacing.

1892 Congregationalist (Boston, Mass.) 4 Aug. 251/4 They give their talents and efforts self-effacingly to promote the careers of their husbands, content to share at home the rewards won aboard.

1989 Times (Nexis) 21 July Not that they would listen to him, he added. He is self-effacingly modest.

2007 Daily Tel. 3 May 33/2 Self-effacingly, he maintains that he ‘wanted to champion British music from the standpoint of an established conductor’.

1906 Sat. Rev. 3 Feb. 131/2 The timid self-effacingness of the clergy, has brought it about that the hopes of dogmatic Christianity are centred on Birmingham and Liverpool.

1951 S. Spender World within World 167 Forster's strange mixture of qualities—his self-effacingness combined with a positive assertion of his views.

2006 Independent (Nexis) 21 Dec. 40 The flip-side of the self-effacingness which could at time [sic] render him almost invisible was an acute sensitivity to the feelings of others.