Literary notes about bashful (AI summary)
Writers use the word "bashful" to impart a sense of gentle reserve and tentative sensitivity in their characters. It can denote someone who is socially hesitant or inherently modest, whether portraying a reticent beauty whose quiet smile speaks volumes ([1], [2]), a man whose restrained demeanor contrasts with his inner passion ([3], [4]), or even a youth whose shyness masks his untapped potential ([5], [6]). The term’s versatility allows it to evoke not only a charming timidity but also a subtle undercurrent of strength, as when a character’s bashfulness highlights both vulnerability and the dignity of modesty ([7], [8]).
- These replies of Katia's were accompanied with a frank, but gentle and bashful, smile, and an upward glance half grave, half sportive.
— from Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev - So bashful when I spied her, So pretty, so ashamed!
— from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete by Emily Dickinson - Any demand makes him proud, bashful, and warlike.
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Moreover, I had always been a shy and bashful boy, and of late had begun to be particularly shy with women.
— from White Nights and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - When a boy Henry Clay was very bashful and diffident, and scarcely dared recite before his class at school, but he determined to become an orator.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden - ‘He’s not much used to ladies’ society, and it makes him bashful.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - "It's so hard I'm afraid to try," said Meg, grateful, but bashful in the presence of the accomplished young lady beside her.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott - With virgin step and bashful hand She held the kerchief's snowy band.
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott
