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Bashful   Listen
adjective
Bashful  adj.  
1.
Abashed; daunted; dismayed. (Obs.)
2.
Very modest, or modest to excess; constitutionally disposed to shrink from public notice; indicating extreme or excessive modesty; shy; as, a bashful person, action, expression.
Synonyms: Diffident; retiring; reserved; shamefaced; sheepish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bashful" Quotes from Famous Books



... snake, Leaned against a garden rake And smiled a sentimental smile At Tilly Toad, on the gravel pile, Till that bashful miss was forced to hop And hide her face in ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson

... princess (to whom Adrienne de Cardoville went, according to her expression, to fight a pitched battle), said of her as follows: "In order to avoid having Madame de Saint-Dizier for an enemy, I, who am neither bashful nor cowardly, have, for the first time in my life, been both a noodle and a coward." This man spoke sincerely. But Madame de Saint-Dizier had not all at once arrived at ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... tight, etc. A PERSON EMBARRASSED BY HIS BODY is the image suggested to us in all these examples. The reason that excessive stoutness is laughable is probably because it calls up an image of the same kind. I almost think that this too is what sometime makes bashfulness somewhat ridiculous. The bashful man rather gives the impression of a person embarrassed by his body, looking round for some convenient cloak-room in which to ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... horse the bridegroom sprung; The latchless gate behind him swung. The knocker of that startled door, Struck as it never was before, Brought the whole household pale with fright; And there, with blushes on his cheek, So bashful he could hardly speak, The farmer met ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... dare not offer What I desire to give; and much less take What I shall die to want.[422-10] But this is trifling; And all the more it seeks to hide itself, The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning! And prompt me, plain and holy innocence! I am your wife, if you will marry me; If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow[423-11] You may deny me; but I'll be your servant, Whether you will ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... is cold standing, though we didn't notice it skating. We did have such fun. Come, boy; don't be bashful. It's the same lady, ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond

... of all, to see the letter from Iowa. "Oh, come," Cope had replied, half-bashful, half-chivalrous, "you know it wasn't written ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... to the Duchess by the Signora Vulpato, waited very respectfully on the lady in her box all through the winter. Never was love more ardent in two souls, or more bashful in its advances. The two children were afraid of each other. Massimilla was no coquette. She had no second string to her bow, no secondo, no terzo, no patito. Satisfied with a smile and a word, she admired her Venetian youth, ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... really was only between the lips—I know that now. With a sudden start she rose up, pushed me off, snatched up Tom from the floor, and rushed upstairs. My fingers were quite wet. For two or three days afterwards, she avoided my eyes and looked bashful, I could not make it out, and it was only months afterwards, that I knew, that the movement of my fingers on her clitoris had made her spend. Without knowing indeed then that such a thing was possible, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... and bespattering of us for using only our own; but since it is the Way of the World for most Men to be inclinable to love Lac'd Mutton, I think it is their Duty to resent the Affront with us so much, as to Satyrize the Author of the Fifteen Comforts of Whoring, who without is some young bashful Effeminate Fool or another, that knows not how to say Boh to a Goose; or some old suffocated old Wretch so far pass'd his Labour, that he scolds for Madness that he cannot give a buxom young Lass her Benevolence; ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various

... you, Timothy: the dacent drop is in you. Keep a lane, there!—any of ye that hasn't a crown, or half-a-crown, don't be bashful of coming up with your hog or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various

... exclaimed the girl from the ranch. "Think of charging a wildcat with one of these smoke wagons! My! wouldn't it make Bashful Ike's eyes bulge out? I reckon he wouldn't believe we had such hunting here in the East—eh?" and her laugh broke the spell of fear that had clutched ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson

... hat, and was about to turn away. "Stay a little," she said with bashful boldness. The joy of giving was rapidly growing to a vice. "Here's something for them," she added, nodding towards his fellows, and a second shilling came from her pocket. "Just as you say, yer ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... appearance. He was a tall, thin, spare man, all bone and muscle. His hair was almost white, and his features, which were not a little weather-beaten, had, I thought, a most pleasant expression. While, however, my brothers ran eagerly forward to meet him, I hung back, watching him at a distance, like a bashful child. Had he been one of England's greatest heroes, I could not have looked at him with greater respect. "And that is the man," I thought, "who has sailed over thousands and thousands of miles of water, and has seen Indians dressed in feathers and ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... knot-hole. She had a basket on her arm, and looked about, and took a few steps softly, this way and that, as if looking for somebody. At last I came out, innocent as a lamb. "Good morning, Elinor," says I. "Have you forgot the roses, Walter?" says she, a little bashful. As if I could forget the roses! The hills were all scattered over with children and young people; for it was a fine morning, and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... last advance, with bashful grace, Downcast eye, and blushing cheek, Timid air, and beauteous face, Anville,-whom the Graces seek. Though ev'ry beauty is her own, And though her mind each virtue fills, Anville,-to her power ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... case was exceptional. Ex-Bishop Hall, in the end of his much-battered life, lived quietly near Norwich, remembering his past losses and sequestrations under the Long Parliament rather than suffering anything more of the kind. Peter Heylin was in similar circumstances in Oxfordshire, and by no means bashful. Jeremy Taylor alternated between the Earl of Carbery's seat, called "the Golden Grove," in Caernarvonshire, near which he taught a school, and the society of his friend John Evelyn, in London or at Sayes ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... dissembling, and such like playing the fool? Nay, how few matches would go forward, if the hasty lover did but first know how many little tricks of lust and wantonness (and perhaps more gross failings) his coy and seemingly bashful mistress had oft before been guilty of? And how fewer marriages, when consummated, would continue happy, if the husband were not either sottishly insensible of, or did not purposely wink at and pass over the lightness and forwardness ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... Their cheeks were adorned with vermilion, their ears with pendants of shell, and their necks with beads. Never yet having signalized themselves as hunters, or performed the honorable exploit of killing a man, they were held in slight esteem, and were diffident and bashful in proportion. Certain formidable inconveniences attended this influx of visitors. They were bent on inspecting everything in the room; our equipments and our dress alike underwent their scrutiny; for though the contrary has been carelessly asserted, few beings have more curiosity ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... extreme, and acquired the character of impudent. This is as great a fault as the other. A well-bred man keeps himself within the two, and steers the middle way. He is easy and firm in every company; is modest, but not bashful; steady, but not impudent. He copies the manners of the better people, and conforms to their customs with ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... an ugly word! He is old, and he limps, and I—well, I was never a very bashful person. He was beautifully polite, but he wouldn't have anything to say ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... other side, Dusopius is so bashful that he hides himself in a corner; he hardly bears being looked at, and never quits the first chair he lights upon, lest he should expose himself to public view. He trembles when you bowe to him at a distance, is shocked at hearing his ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... no fellow ever marries them!" said Quimby, with a glance of bashful admiration at ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer

... Pavlovna's maids there was one very pretty girl with clear soft eyes and refined features, Malanya by name, an modest intelligent creature. She took his fancy at first sight, and he fell in love with her: he fell in love with her timid movements, her bashful answers, her gentle voice and gentle smile; every day she seemed sweeter to him. And she became devoted to Ivan Petrovitch with all the strength of her soul, as none but Russian girls can be devoted—and she gave herself to him. In the large household of a country squire nothing can long be ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... tutor in a rich burgomaster's family, where he fell in love with the pretty, amiable, and mischievous daughter. She fully reciprocated his feelings, and as her parents approved of the match, she gave the bashful young man all the encouragement she could: she felt very sure as to the nature of his sentiments towards her, but notwithstanding all she could do, the young man would not propose—as she rightly concluded, the thought of her superior wealth deterred him; and meantime the foolish fellow ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... soldier! Why, you can see right off his cleverness and everything. But what does a civilian amount to? Just a dummy. [Silence] I wonder why it is that so many ladies sit down with their feet under their chairs. There's positively no difficulty in learning how! Although I was a little bashful before the teacher, I learned how to do it perfectly in twenty lessons. Why not learn how to dance? It's only a superstition not to. Here mamma sometimes gets angry because the teacher is always grabbing at my knees. All that comes from ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... so very bashful," Joe disclaimed, placing the little roll which contained his one extra shirt on the wash-bench near the door, taking off his hat, then, and standing serious and solemn before his ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... somewhat steadily, as some others had done; at any rate, she seemed to feel that she was looked at, as people often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly on him, caught his own on her face, gave him a half-bashful smile, and threw in a blush involuntarily which made ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Naturally bashful, and conscious of my inferior position, I hardly knew whether I was asleep or awake; but was soon restored to my senses by Captain Thompson, who said, in an off-hand manner, "Hawser, these gentlemen are anxious to hear you read Cochran's pamphlet, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... it is timid, silent, and bashful, as if not at home, and not sure of its right to be there at all. It is rather homely withal, having nothing in feather, feature, or form to attract notice. It is seemingly made to be heard, not seen, reversing the old axiom addressed ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... Builder came to a dead stop, and paused for a moment in bashful shamefacedness most unwonted with him, for there was Dinah entering behind his daughter, and surely she must have ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... at all bashful about acceptin' the invitation, nor our starin' at him don't seem to get him a bit fussed. In fact, he's about the coolest appearin' member of our ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... a little boy named Jim, who had been having a private coast in the field near the house, was peeping over the fence, and wishing he were old enough to play with the other boys. He didn't venture to join them, for he was bashful, and rather timid: but he saw all that took place, and he will remember all about it when he ...
— The Nursery, April 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... possession of him. He was a very different person from the rough, awkward lad of eight years back. He still had the somewhat loutish figure which, in his mother's family, was the shell of fine-looking men, and he was shy and bashful, but Eton polish had taken away the rude gruffness, and made his manners and bearing gentlemanly. His face was honest and intelligent, and he had a thoroughly good, conscientious disposition; his character stood high, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... beyond shone like beaten gold. And Texas Bill, just in from a week's trip on the range, soothed and inspired by the civilizing influences of the ranch-house, a shave, clean clothes, and his supper, unbent from his usual bashful dignity and talked. ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... close Inhales the sweetness of the Rose, And hovers o'er the uninjur'd bloom Sighing back the soft perfume. 10 Vigour to the Zephyr's wing Her nectar-breathing kisses fling; And He the glitter of the Dew Scatters on the Rose's hue. Bashful lo! she bends her head, 15 And darts ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... have ventured to notice; and, in short, did for him what no one but an elegant woman can do for a young man, whose early days have been spent in narrow and provincial circles. "When I first saw Sir Walter," she writes to me, "he was about four-or five-and-twenty, but looked much younger. He seemed bashful and {p.230} awkward; but there were from the first such gleams of superior sense and spirit in his conversation, that I was hardly surprised when, after our acquaintance had ripened a little, I felt myself to be talking with a man ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... bashful, nor hath conversation, age, or travel, been able to effront or enharden me; yet I have one part of modesty which I have seldom discovered in another, that is, (to speak truly), I am not so much ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte

... not be bashful. Tell me about your adventures in the mountains, with all the hairbreadth escapes, fantastic coloring, and romantic medley of incidents that must be crowded into the life of anyone engaged in ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... is cast—all clashing of opinion or collision of feeling, all restraint or suspicion or gloom or resentment; his great concern being to make everyone at ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unreasonable allusions or topics that may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... and solemn in Johnny Allardice's "room:" the men anxious to surrender their seats to the ladies who happened to be standing, but too bashful to propose it; the ham and the fish frizzling noisily side by side but the house, and hissing out every now and then to let all whom it might concern know that Janet Craik was adding more water to the gravy. A better woman never lived; but, oh, ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... ACCIDENTALLY, which is divisible into 1st. He that voteth through the BLUNDERS OF HIMSELF, which may be considered as 1. He who is drunk, and forgetteth who gave him the bribe. 2. He who goeth to the wrong agent, who leadeth him astray. 3. He who is confused and giveth the wrong name. 4. He who is bashful, and assenteth to any name suggested. 5. He who promiseth both parties, and voteth for all the candidates, and the like. 2nd. He that voteth through the BLUNDERS OF OTHERS, which may be considered as 1. He who is mistaken for his servant when he is canvassed, and so incensed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various

... then a brakeman goes by swinging his lantern. The boys would like to ask him what time it is, but for one thing they're too bashful. Being a brakeman is almost as good as going with a "troupe" or a circus. You get to go to places that way, too, Marysville, and Mechanicsburg, and Harrod's—that is, if you're on the local freight, and then you lay over in Cincinnati. Some ways ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... (Yeoville): But why should a Bill of this sort be brought before them now? The Government in the past had not been bashful in the appointing of Commissions, and one question he would ask was why, in this important matter, the Government had not appointed a Commission to take all the evidence and then come to the House with a measure ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... It is a human trait deeply ingrained and going back to the very beginning of life to be afraid of that which we do not understand. Courage, self-confidence, and self-possession always come with complete understanding. Therefore, these timid, bashful ones may find, and many of them have found, greater social ease through a knowledge of themselves and of others, gained through ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... pin money in dainties and flowers which he seldom presented to her directly. He would leave them on her bed or on the dining-room table with never a word. Frank and Marian were pleased and touched by his devotion. They laughed together over his bashful ways without suspecting ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... speaking," she told Miss Garcide; "I suppose he's anxious and bashful. I think I'll tell him that it is all arranged. Besides, I promised Mr. Garcide to speak. I don't see why I don't; I'm not ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... a young fellow here who would like to ask you what makes his cows give bitter milk this fall, but he is bashful." ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... came home to his supper, his face was a sight to see, as he caught sight of me at my open window, and came to it with the child's white arms clinging to his neck, looking as happy and as bashful as a girl. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... morning, so as not to miss her, and hardly attended at all to the rest of the pageant of life that moved within the radius of her observation. Her heart beat fast when, about the middle of the morning, Mr. Wyse came round the dentist's corner, for it might be that the bashful Susan had sent him to make the announcement, but, if so, he was bashful too, for he walked by her house without pause. He looked rather worried, she thought (as well he might), and passing on he disappeared round the church corner, clearly on his way to his betrothed. He carried ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... was bashful, and when he should get sooner over it he English just like you speaks. Just like you he speaks. He is a good boy. Where is he goin' to sit? Where ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... the ribs of Chips, and winked at Fitz, who could hardly contain his countenance at the carpenter's peculiar looks, for the big rough sailor seemed as bashful as a girl, and nodded and gesticulated at the lads in turn, while the next moment he looked as if about to bolt, for the skipper suddenly clapped him on the shoulder and exclaimed as he ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art, 90 That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... not sad, force it no further; Good Gods, how well you look! such a full colour Young bashful Brides put on: sure you ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... came over me," she wrote the next day to her mother; "I never felt so bashful and stupid in my life; and yet Mrs. Sefton was most kind and considerate, only her graciousness seemed to crush me. She is very handsome, far handsomer than her daughter, slightly stout, but such a grand looking figure; Miss Sefton and I look like pygmies beside her; ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... men sitting with him, grave and potent signiors, professors from the University, who, on being introduced, beamed paternally and asked her questions about Oxford and Cambridge. There were bashful youths too, who blushed when she entered and rose hurriedly with muttered excuses. If they could be induced to stay, Olive, seeing that it pleased Astorre to see them shuffling their feet and writhing on their chairs in an agony of embarrassment before ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... though was that of the born combatant. The class that laughed openly at his first tremblingly bashful, and ludicrously inapt answer at quiz, was indelibly photographed ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... in his own country, and so ofttimes is a Poet. To his bashful supplication of "Wilt thou?" the young maidens if his village unhesitatingly refused to wilt, and thus it was that ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various

... from Silver Ranch, was on hand to greet Ruth and the others, she having arrived at Briarwood the day before. She brought greetings from her Uncle Bill, Bashful Ike ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... put them between my teeth without passing them through his own. From the softness of the bits of bread, and my having seen my poet come out of the monastery, I surmised that his muse, like that of many of his brethren, was a bashful beggar. He walked into the city, and I followed him, intending to take him for my master if he would let me, thinking that the crumbs from his table might serve to support me, since there is no better or ampler purse than charity, whose ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... arm with its muscles like iron sent a fiery thrill through Lida's soft, supple frame. Bashful and trembling, she drew away from him as if at the approach of some ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... to skillful maneuvering on the opening day of school, and flaxen-haired Olga occupied the desk ahead. A day earlier he had counted himself fortunate in having her for a neighbor, for she was clever at studies which required plodding perseverance, and not at all bashful about helping a fellow when teacher pounced on him with a ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... Mrs. Myers to invite us," remarked Ford, "but she never thought how bashful we'd ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard

... bound to look after the baby. The sooner it is taken away from the poor woman the better. Let me see. Tell Paul Pringle to go and get the baby and bring it up to my cabin. That is the most airy and healthy place for the little chap. We must rig out a cot for it there. Freeborn himself would feel bashful at taking his child there. Either he or Pringle must act as nurse, though. I have no fancy for having one of the ship's boys making the attempt. They would be feeding him with salt beef and duff, or smothering him; and as for waking when he cries ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... "Goo'bye, Bashful!" coos the redhead to me, and the two of them disappear, cackling, down the steps. I start across Fourteenth Street as soon as the light changes, without bothering to look if Nick is coming. He ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville

... four and a half months' hard work, the ladies of a certain Dorcas Society were so delighted with the completion of a beautiful silk patchwork quilt for the dear curate that everybody kissed everybody else, except, of course, the bashful young man himself, who only kissed his sisters, whom he had called for, to escort home. There were just a gross of osculations altogether. How much longer would the ladies have taken over their needlework task if the sisters of the curate referred to ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... been much accustomed to the society of girls, and in consequence felt quite bashful when he found himself seated next to her at table; but her quiet, easy, and graceful manner speedily put him at his ease; and during the progress of dinner he could not refrain from stealing a few glances ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce

... offer that horse, only he was a little bashful in the presence of strangers—meaning the horse—and didn't show up in a style to make his owner proud of him. The trouble with that horse was he used to belong to a one-legged man, and got so accustomed to the feel of a one-legged ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... all his parishioners; for I heard him inquire after one man's youngest child, another man's wife, and so forth; and that he was fond of his joke, I discovered from overhearing him ask a stout, fresh-coloured young fellow, with a very pretty bashful-looking girl on his arm, 'when those banns were to be put up?'—an inquiry which made the young fellow more fresh-coloured, and the girl more bashful, and which, strange to say, caused a great many other girls who were standing round, to ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens

... wide toothless grin, and his bashful blue eyes shifted, shuttle-wise, in their sockets until he was able to survey in full ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... I implore you, from this man," and with the words she sprang towards the door; but the churlish giant, guessing her intention, intercepted, and bore her back, saying "Keep quiet, gentle lady; have patience, bashful beauty; sit down, sit down; come pet, come." And he made as if to approach her; when, forgetting the hazard of her position, and inspired with returning native courage, with her heart swelling with womanly indignation, and looking the vast figure in the ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... sun-coloured roses—every shade of the necks which are ambered by glowing skies. Then there was skin of softer hue: among the tea roses, bewitchingly moist and cool, one caught glimpses of modest, bashful charms, with skin as fine as silk tinged faintly with a blue network of veins. Farther on all the smiling life of the rose expanded: there was the blush white rose, barely tinged with a dash of carmine, snowy as the foot of a maid dabbling in a spring; there was the silvery pink, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... different ways as the doctor himself. When they ought to have spoken, they didn't speak; or when they did speak they were perpetually at cross purposes. Mr. Godfrey, though so eloquent in public, declined to exert himself in private. Whether he was sulky, or whether he was bashful, after his discomfiture in the rose-garden, I can't say. He kept all his talk for the private ear of the lady (a member of our family) who sat next to him. She was one of his committee-women—a spiritually-minded person, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... better of the mist, and spreading a cheery light over the square, which had looked dismal enough under a grey, rainy sky. I made all the women gather on the outskirts of the square to be measured and photographed. They were very bashful, and I almost pitied them, for the whole male population sat around making cruel remarks about them; indeed, if it had not been for the chiefs explicit orders, they would all have run away. They were not a ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... Mickie, tell her come along." "No, bi'mby. When finish wash 'em plate." That duty disposed of, Mickie—"Now Boss." "Well, come along, Jinny. What you want?" "No, Boss; I no want talk alonga you, Mickie humbug you. What for you humbug Boss, Mickie?" Jinny was bashful, for the subject was momentous, touched her pride, and had been depressing her gaiety for many weeks. Presently she came and with emphatic deliberation said—"Boss—No—good—Missis—call—out— Jinny! Jinny! When want wash 'em plate. More better you hammer 'em that fella, all asame ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... know. That's his business. And everybody in Limeport knows what he has said. He hasn't been bashful about ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... all of them so bashful that they would not speak in company, and Katy and Nellie had to do ...
— Dolly and I - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic

... tiptoe on something or other; Greenwich Village would awaken and bestir itself. Discovery would come, and forth he would be drawn like a shy, unwilling periwinkle from its shell, once more to play his abased and bashful role of free entertainer to guffawing mixed audiences. For all others in the great city there were havens and homes. But for a poor, lorn, unguided vagrant, enmeshed in the burlesque garnitures of a three-year-old male child, what haven was there? By night the part had been hard ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... handwriting. Helen's letter was in turn gay and brilliant and lazy, just as she was herself; but Madeline detected more of curiosity in it than of real longing to see the sister and brother in the Far West. Much of what Helen wrote was enthusiastic anticipation of the fun she expected to have with bashful cowboys. Helen seldom wrote letters, and she never read anything, not even popular novels of the day. She was as absolutely ignorant of the West as the Englishman, who, she said, expected to hunt buffalo and fight Indians. Moreover, there was a satiric note in the ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... both thank me for projecting this separation," replied the Major. "Seeing the world with your own eyes will improve you, brush off that home-bred air which makes you bashful, and enlarge your ideas and powers of conversation. I promise ourselves a spirited, agreeable campaign. Hopton's office in the council will confine him about the person of the Prince, who must be kept at some distance from the scene of action; and Goring is no rigid disciplinarian. The ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... me, then, To spare thyself a little bashful pain? Paolo, dost thou know what 'tis for me, A woman—nay, a dame of highest rank— To lose my purity? to walk a path Whose slightest slip may fill my ear with sounds That hiss me out to infamy and death? Have I no secret pangs, no self-respect, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker

... darkness, a glimmer of light came to him from some other cranny. He passed thus his days in sapping and counter-sapping. The most impudent deceit had become natural to him, and was concealed under an air that was simple, upright, sincere, often bashful. He would have spoken with grace and forcibly, if, fearful of saying more than he wished, he had not accustomed himself to a fictitious hesitation, a stuttering—which disfigured his speech, and which, redoubled when important things were in question, became insupportable ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... come in contact with the prince without liking him, for his bashful, gentle, and teachable nature is very winning. We remember with a certain amusement the time that Grant Robertson got off one of his annual gags to the effect that, according to the principle of strict legitimacy, there were in Europe several ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... and his partner, behind the screen. She is breathing as if she had been running hard. She lifts her eyes. The tall young man, divested of hat and coat, is standing by her table, holding out his hand with a sort of bashful hardiness. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... it'd be no use if they mean bad. I can't make up my mind yet what's comin' off. It's all right for you to pretend you're bashful. But ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... turn to the audience for applause, are among the things that the nineteenth century can do without. According to the programme, Mr. George Moore—the Sir Harry Bumper—was to sing the song, "Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen." Mr. Moore did not sing it, but Mr. Labouchere did. The explanation of this, we understand, was not that Sir Harry's heart failed him at the eleventh hour, but that Mr. Labouchere threatened to fling up his part unless the song was given ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... Bashful, blushing, tremulous, as different as is well possible from Bruennhilde, Gutrune approaches, holding a filled drinking-horn. "Welcome, guest, in Gibich's house! His ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... Pixie advanced to meet each other, red in the face and bashful of eye. The encounter at the door had been so momentary that she had hardly had time to recognise the pale face with the deep blue eyes, but for him the first note of her voice ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... certain of the Odes (e.g. i. 14) to this period. About this time he made the acquaintance of Virgil, which ripened at least on Horace's part into warm affection. Virgil and Varius introduced him to Maecenas, [17] who received the bashful poet with distant hauteur, and did not again send for him until nine months had elapsed. Slow to make up his mind, but prompt to act when his decision was once taken, Maecenas then called for Horace, and in the poet's words bade him be reckoned among his friends; [18] and very ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... boy always sitting at the master's desk; they called him "the monitor." It was his place to assist scholars who were in trouble about their lessons, but I was too bashful to speak to him, or to ask assistance of anybody. I think that nobody learned much under that regime, and the whole school system was soon ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... to sense the child's quickening. "He'll be of help on the farm, so strong as he is," he remarked. Then, tugging his hat down tight, Aaron went outdoors, bashful before this mystery. ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang

... being turned loose here with the rest, they may speak to anybody; but the fact is, they can't. Sometimes I should like to hail some of these unfriended spirits, but I haven't the courage. I'm not individually bashful, but I have a thousand years of Anglo-Saxon civilisation behind me. There ought to be policemen, to show strangers about and be kind to them. I've just seen two pretty women cast away in a corner, and clinging to a small water-colour on the wall ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... tenderest names, and endeavoured to awake her, yet she continued to sleep. Taking her in his arms, he embraced her passionately; but she slept on, and appeared insensible to all his caresses. What could this mean? Was it the feint of a bashful girl, or was he himself dreaming? It was growing lighter; and in the hope of dispelling the odious enchantments with which he was surrounded, M. Desalleux went to the window, and drew aside the blinds and curtains to let in the new day. Then the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... other joys of the last terms, one shone out pre-eminent in Darsie Garnett's estimation. She was Prime Minister! It seemed almost too splendid to be true! She, who three years before had made her first appearance at Political as the bashful representative of Bootle-cum- Linacre, to have advanced to this dizzy height of power! To be captain of the Hockey Club paled into insignificance before this crowning honour, but as Hannah was "Speaker," Darsie was unable to crow as loudly as ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... cables, still she was anything but steady. As passengers began to multiply, acquaintances were formed. By and by the stewart came around, and assigned to us our berths. Ship government is monarchic in form. The officers have almost absolute authority, and the passengers, like bashful pupils, do their best to learn the new rules and regulations and adapt their conduct to them, as soon as possible, so that nobody may find occasion for making observations or passing remarks. All these things remind one very much of a ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... trousers in place; his form was bony and awkward; his bare legs and arms were brown and sunburned and briar-scratched. He swung his horses around just as I passed by, and from under the flapping brim of his hat he cast a quick glance out of dark, half-bashful eyes, and modestly returned my salute. When his back was turned I took off my hat and sent a God-bless-you down ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... under stratum of bashfulness, or sheepishness, or mauvaise honte, call it which you will; and the torture, the breaking on the wheel, with which a man of that temperament perceives the eyes of a whole courthouse, for instance, attracted to him, none but a bashful man can understand. At length I summoned ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... from head to foot; Lord Jackey grinning and laughing, like an oaf, as I then, in my spite, thought. Indeed the countess said, encouragingly to me, but severely in persons of birth, "Lady Davers, you are as much too teazing, as Mrs. B. is too bashful. But you are a happy man, Mr. B., that your lady's bashfulness is the principal mark by which we can judge she is not of quality." Lord Jackey, in the language of some character in a play, cried out, "A palpable hit, by Jupiter!" and laughed egregiously, running about ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... marry from interested motives are inexcusable; but the very modesty of women makes against their happiness in this point, by giving them a kind of bashful fear of objecting to such persons as their parents recommend as proper objects of ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... been thinking you look- -sort of 'peaked' as Aunt Libby would say. Have you been worrying about the explanation business? Because if you feel sensitive about it, just leave it to me. I am not the least bit bashful, ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose

... was very bashful and diffident, and scarcely dared recite before his class at school, but he determined to become an orator. So he committed speeches and recited them in the cornfields, or in the barn with the horse and cows ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... over I was slinking away without speaking to him. I suppose that I was bashful and a bit afraid of the grave 'Doctor Marx,' the great man. But he saw me going out and shouted my name. 'Wait a minute, Hans Fritzsche,' he cried, and came running to me with outstretched hands. Then he insisted upon introducing ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo

... all ages: children at their first web of lace, a stripling girl with a bashful but encouraging play of eyes, solid married women, and grandmothers, some on the top of their age and some falling towards decrepitude. One and all were pleasant and natural, ready to laugh and ready with a certain quiet solemnity ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... like?" inquired the man, gravely, and the girl found herself no longer bashful with him but at ease, as with ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... all New York go mad over aviation—rather, over news about aviation. The newspapers had spread over front pages his name and the names of the other fliers. Carl chuckled to himself, with bashful awe, "Gee! can you beat it?—that's me!" when he beheld himself referred to in editorial and interview and picture-caption as a superman, a god. He heard crowds rustle, "Look, there's Hawk Ericson!" as he walked along the barriers. He heard cautious predictions ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... them, plainly embarrassed, gripping his disreputable hat in both hands like a great bashful boy, his face reddening under her smiling eyes, his voice appearing to catch within his throat. Mercedes laughed again, patting his broad shoulder with her white hand as though she petted a great, good-natured dog. Then ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... of a blush flitted over her face, as she answered, in a bashful way: "Excuse me if the habit of associating you with the memory of my father makes me forget the shortness of our acquaintance. Beside, you once asked me if ever I was in trouble to call upon you as I would upon ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... houses, builded well— Only that little lonesome cell, Where never romping playmates come, Nor bashful sweethearts, cunning-dumb— An April burst of girls and boys, Their rainbowed cloud of glooms and joys Born with their songs, gone with their toys; Nor ever is its stillness stirred By purr of cat, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... had courted the young woman, "bashful-like," and had been so; for she was a splendid young woman; not so handsome now, as she used to be when he had seen her in the winter: but her illness had pulled her down and made her humble: they had cut her hair during the fever, which had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... megaphone, as different in tone from the thing that the man in the Grand Central Station bellows the trains through as the vox-humana stop of an organ is different from the fog-horn of a light-house. The captain's wife was bashful, in her odd American dress, but we had got seats near the tribune, rather out of sight, and there was nothing to hinder our hearing, like the frou-frou of stiff silks or starched skirts (which I am afraid we poor things in America like to ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... in his hand. He was a curly-headed, powerful country lad, twenty-four years old, who, two months before, had come from an Illinois farm to join the expedition. The frontier was to him a place of varied diversion, Independence a stimulating center. So diffident that the bashful David seemed by contrast a man of cultured ease, he was now blushing till the back of his neck ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... that somebody was speaking to him, in a small, bashful voice. He turned, and saw a little girl in shorts and a sleeveless jacket, holding in her arms a long-haired blond puppy with ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper

... her knees, but she twisted her fingers in her skirt as if she were bashful, yet her face was perturbed with red ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... of her he said a few words to the lawyer in a somewhat different key, and descended from his vehicle. As she came up to them Mr. Dain saluted her with bashful abruptness, and her proud face broke as if by the loosing of a spell into a generous and captivating smile; Mr. Dain blushed, the vision was too much for his composure; he moved his horse forward a yard or two, and then jerked it back again, gruffly advising it to stand still. Stanway turned ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... Bless me, but I'm sorry! Didn't see you, upon my word. Pick your wares up, sonny, and take stock of the broken things, then come in and I'll make it all square. Just ask for Mr. Wedron, and don't be bashful," and he bustles into the office of the W—— House, where he calls for the best room they can give him, registers as "A. C. Wedron, att'y, N. Y.," and, asking that he might have dinner as early as possible, he goes at ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... exclaimed. "Rose is too bashful for that." Then he hinted, "But you see I am going to ...
— The Heart of the Rose • Mabel A. McKee

... Emmanuel Eaton (the old Nursery man) (very appropriately) named his latest Fuchsia, when he saw us children turning down the Wood End Lane in the Donkey Carriage on a birthday, flush of coppers—and bashful about ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... any," answered Flossie, who was feeling a bit shy and bashful because so many persons were looking at ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope

... Rose's great dismay, six more hands were offered, and it was evident that she was expected to shake them all. It was a trying moment to the bashful child; but, remembering that they were her kinsmen come to welcome her, she tried her best to ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... rather sorry the lot fell upon me; for I was always bashful, and never thought much of myself but once. I think my bashfulness was mostly owing to my knowing myself to be not very good-looking. I believe that I am not considered a bad-looking old man; indeed, people who remember me at twenty-five say that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... had been some while asleep when a voice recalled him from oblivion. "Sir," it was saying; and looking round, he saw Mr. Killian's daughter, terrified by her boldness, and making bashful signals from the shore. She was a plain, honest lass, healthy and happy and good, and with that sort of beauty that comes of happiness and health. But her confusion lent her for the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... find this evening ample food for mirth. Johnson, who understands what he does as well as any man, exposes the impertinence of an old fellow who has lost his senses, still pursuing pleasures with great mastery. The ingenious Mr. Pinkethman is a bashful rake, and is sheepish, without having modesty with great success. Mr. Bullock succeeds Nokes in the part of Bubble, and, in my opinion, is not much below him, for he does excellently that kind of folly we call absurdity, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... squire. "Nonsense! No but, lad. Butter—ay, and cream it shall be. Let him turn ye off. There's a home at Greenwood for ye, if he does—and something better than that too. Sixteen, ye dog! Sweet sixteen, rosy sixteen, bashful ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... the modest, almost bashful, demeanor of the fallen general among his friends, and his glorious heroism in the presence of his enemies, and many tears moistened the brown cheeks of rough soldiers as they thought of the loss of one ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... I never tempted her with word too large, But, as a brother to his sister, show'd Bashful sincerity, and comely love. ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... left to itself, though very bashful, is wholly devoid of modesty.[5] Everyone is familiar with the shocking inconvenances of children in speech and act, with the charming ways in which they innocently disregard the conventions of modesty their elders thrust upon them, or, even when anxious to carry them out, wholly miss the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... power of vegetable or fibrous irritability: ascend through the classes of vegetables, and you will at length reach the strong stimulative perfection, the palpable vitality of the mimosa pudica, or the hedysarum gyrans, the former of which shrinks from the touch with the most bashful coyness, while the latter perpetually dances beneath the jocund rays of the sun. And when we have thus attained the summit of vegetable powers and vegetable life, it will require, I think, no great stretch of the imagination to conceive that the fibrous irritability of animals, as well as vegetables, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... toast; then, if I mistake not, there was another prodigious flourish of trumpets and twanging of stringed instruments; and finally the doomed individual, waiting all this while to be decapitated, got up and proceeded to make a fool of himself. A bashful young earl tried his maiden oratory on the good citizens of London, and having evidently got every word by heart, (even including, however he managed it, the most seemingly casual improvisations of the moment,) he really spoke like a book, and made incomparably ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... mother-in-law joined me heartily and appeared to me so much changed. I could not but be both surprised and overjoyed at it. We distributed at the house ninety-six dozen loaves of bread every week, but private charities to the bashful poor were much greater. I kept poor boys and girls employed. The Lord gave such blessings to my alms, that I did not find that my family lost anything by it. Before the death of my husband, my mother-in-law told him that I would ruin him with my charities, though ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... more, their differences of intellect and mind. This may be dark, that fair; this may have gray eyes, that black; this may be open and graceful, that reserved and close; this you may love, that you can take no interest in. One may be bashful, another winning, a third worth knowing and yet hard to know. They are so like and so unlike. At first it may be, as an old English writer beautifully expresses it, 'their father hath writ them as his own little story', but as they grow up they ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... the opposers of the Queen and ministry, having been first drawn into their party by his indifference to any principles, and afterwards kept steady by the loss of his place. His bold, forward countenance, altogether a stranger to that infirmity which makes men bashful, joined to a readiness of speaking in public, hath justly entitled him, among those of his faction, to be a sort of leader of the second form. The reader must excuse me for being so particular about one, who is ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... how large your drawing-room may be, keep it intimate in spirit. There should be a dozen conversation centers in a large room. There should be one or more sofas, with comfortable chairs pulled up beside them. No one chair should be isolated, for some bashful person who doesn't talk well anyway is sure to take the most remote chair and make herself miserable. I have seen a shy young woman completely changed because she happened to sit upon a certain deep cushioned sofa of rose-colored damask. ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... The bashful shopkeeper hereupon perched himself on the extreme front edge of a chair, at a respectful distance from the table; but was told to draw up closer by his hospitable entertainer. Then they took three or four glasses of wine together, and gradually Jeremiah found himself more at home, and scrupled ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... mystic bond of union in our ideas: we discussed life, love, religion, and the future state, not only with the utmost candor, but with a warmth of feeling which, in many of us, was genuine. Even I (and you know how painfully shy and bashful I was) felt myself more at home there than in my father's house; and if I didn't talk much, I had a pleasant feeling of being in harmony ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... nod of assent. Thanks, as elegancies of social intercourse, were alarming, and savored of affectation, to him. He had thanked the Lord, from his heart, for all his known and unknown gifts, but his gratitude towards his fellow-men had never overcome his bashful self-consciousness and found voice. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... up, and his eyes rolled, and his face was contracted into wrinkles and his body was covered with sweat; and yet he could not raise it. And when after having striven, the illustrious Bhima failed in raising the tail, he approached the side of the monkey, and stood with a bashful countenance. And bowing down, Kunti's son, with joined hands, spake these words, 'Relent thou, O foremost of monkeys; and forgive me for my harsh words. Art thou a Siddha, or a god, or a Gandharva, or a Guhyaka? ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... motioned forwards by Aunt Barbara always made Kate shrink back into herself, and the presence of a little girl before elders likewise rendered her shy and bashful, so she came forth as if intensely disgusted, put out her hand as if she were going to poke, and muttered her favourite "—do" so awkwardly and coldly, that Lady Barbara felt how proud and ungracious it looked, and to make up said, "My niece has been very ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge

... boy in the sixth form at Cliborough, and he could, on occasions, blush most bashfully. His blush was, however, the only bashful thing about him and he used it very seldom. Ward had told me that although Dennison looked such a kid he knew a tremendous lot. I discovered this for myself later on, but I cannot say that his knowledge was the kind which is difficult to acquire. He professed a wholesale contempt ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... Jove!" said Captain Donnithorne, laughing. "Why, she looks as quiet as a mouse. There's something rather striking about her, though. I positively felt quite bashful the first time I saw her—she was sitting stooping over her sewing in the sunshine outside the house, when I rode up and called out, without noticing that she was a stranger, 'Is Martin Poyser at home?' ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... wakened me each morning about four. I found Mr. Hopper a tall, bent old man, with meek, faded blue eyes, and a snowy frill of beard. He had an especially sweet and pathetic voice, with a little quaver in it, like a bashful girl's. ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... go to church at all the first Sunday and she'll have to go alone," said Peter. "That happened in Markdale. A man was too bashful to go to church the first time after getting married, and his wife went alone till he ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... bashful, nor was he over-fastidious; men who have lived long in the wilderness are not, as a rule. Still, he had his little whims, and he failed to react to the young lady's smile. His pale blue eyes were keen to observe details and ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold then, he will know how to make ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... preferred—as women will—the outward handsomeness of Viscount Rotherby to the sounder heart and brain that were Dick Everard's. As bold and dominant as any ruffler of them all where men and perils were concerned, young Everard was timid, bashful and without assertiveness with women. He had withdrawn from the contest ere it was well lost, leaving an easy ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... dinner at a farmhouse in which were seven virgins seated all of a row. They were all good-looking, but shy and bashful to a degree I never before witnessed. All the young women in this country seem to be either uncommonly free-spoken, or else ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... to the room at Mrs. Clayton's boarding-house. He felt rather bashful at first about appearing at the table. Half an hour before the time, he reached the house, and went up at once to ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr

... in the street, with a roll of papers under his arm, supplied by the generosity of his new acquaintance. It was rather a trying ordeal for a country boy, new to the city and its ways. But Ben was not bashful. He was not a timid boy, but was fully able to push his way. So, glancing at the telegraphic headings, he began to call out the news in a business-like way. He had already taken notice of how the other newsboys acted, and therefore was at no ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... of the homestead Sundown paused and raised his broad sombrero. Anita, dusky and buxom daughter of Chico Miguel, "the little hombre with the little herd," as the cattle-men described him, nodded a bashful acknowledgment of the salute, and spoke sharply to the dog which had risen and was bristling toward ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... now soothingly to stroke the great, rough hand he held; but at once Elizabeth broke into bashful laughter, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... the handle and walk right in," said the Sergeant, with a laugh. "You don't want to be bashful there." ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... callow and obtuse I was at that time, full of vague and tremulous aspirations and awakenings, but undisciplined, uninformed, with many inherited incapacities and obstacles to weigh me down. I was extremely bashful, had no social aptitude, and was likely to stutter when anxious or embarrassed, yet I seem to have made a good impression. I was much liked in school and out, and was fairly happy. I seem to see sunshine over all when I look back there. But it was a long summer ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus



Words linked to "Bashful" :   blate, timid, Scotland, backward, bashfulness



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