as in bashfulness
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Recent Examples of Synonyms for sheepishness
Noun
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Her skin—something known as Frubber, a porous patented blend of fleshlike elastic polymers—stretched over a structure of plastic and titanium, and there was no flicker of bashfulness.—
Dan Turello,
New Yorker,
10 Jan. 2026
Noun
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And that eye could see past Dorothy’s drab uniform and Cindy Brady pigtails, her tall girl’s diffidence and her sweet girl’s shyness, to the bombshell smoldering underneath.—
Lili Anolik,
Vanity Fair,
12 Jan. 2026
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There are no speakers in the songs of MJ Lenderman other than MJ Lenderman, whose diffidence and exhaustion are in all-too-perfect lockstep with the psychic frustrations of his listeners.—
Armin Rosen,
The Washington Examiner,
9 Jan. 2026
Noun
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But German timidity before Israel’s moral blackmail only partly explains Habermas’s callous attitude toward the country’s Palestinian victims.—
Sean Williams,
Harpers Magazine,
27 Jan. 2026
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Even in the face of Hollywood’s timidity, some American independent animators have managed to push their offbeat visions through as features made with limited resources.—
Carlos Aguilar,
Los Angeles Times,
22 Jan. 2026
Noun
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But terpsichorean shyness isn’t Josh’s problem.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
24 Jan. 2026
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Strategic silence is not shyness or introversion.—
Benjamin Laker,
Forbes.com,
20 Jan. 2026
Noun
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And acquiescence can be contagious.—
Spencer Kornhaber,
The Atlantic,
20 Jan. 2026
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Even if clemency led the White House to dial back the ongoing efforts to punish Colorado, acquiescence today only invites future harassment.—
Max Potter,
Denver Post,
15 Jan. 2026
Noun
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One truth of which Vigil seems deliberately oblivious is that many of those who inspire confidence and deference, as Boone did, have something going for them.—
Julius Taranto,
The Atlantic,
27 Jan. 2026
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The federal courts usually grant deference to the president when the government issues statements in the context of litigation.—
Andrea Katz,
The Conversation,
26 Jan. 2026
Noun
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But for Coles, his indoctrination to law enforcement has been a different level of submissiveness.—
Dan Pompei,
New York Times,
2 Dec. 2025
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In Killers of the Flower Moon, his Ernest Burkhart starts off as a mopey, weak-minded World War One veteran, eager to do anything for his godfather uncle (Robert De Niro), but there’s still a certain likability to his dim-bulb submissiveness.—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
2 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Her hollow eyes and unflinching face lend Ju-Ju a gut-wrenching passivity and naivete.—
Blake Simons,
IndieWire,
26 Jan. 2026
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Sometimes the passivity results in long periods of unemployment or underemployment in which the husband neither looks for work nor does any extra parenting or housework.—
Oona Metz,
Time,
13 Jan. 2026
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“Sheepishness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sheepishness. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.
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