Synonyms:
reserve, reticence, taciturnity
Meaning: the trait of being uncommunicative; not volunteering anything more than necessary
Usage examples
All hope of discreet reticence was ripped to shreds
But when close friends are together, a little conscious reticence is practised till the door is tiled.
Both men possessed, too, the reticence the Borlsovers had always shown, and which their enemies sometimes called hypocrisy.
"Impenetrable reticence," the Count expounded, sententious--and enjoying himself hugely--"isn't possible in the human relations.
Even Mrs Lawford had appeared to share her husband's reticence. But Dr Simon had happened on other cases in his experience where tact was required rather than skill, and time than medicine.
Owing to my reticence to Sir Simon about your parents, Alice, I am really responsible for the whole business, so I will keep working at it until Bernard is out of danger and married to you."
Partly out of loyalty to their captain, partly because they perceived that if he was guilty of defection they were guilty with him, and partly because being simple, sturdy men of their hands, they were themselves in the main a little confused as to what really had happened, the crew of the Arabella practised reticence with their brethren in Tortuga during those two days before Wolverstone's arrival.