Irreticence

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Unreservedness; the property of being irreticent. countable, uncountable

    "Quite unmoved these travellers sit reading—Thomas Hardy, perhaps—bridging abysses, preserving continuity, a little contemptuous of the excitement which is moving those who feel themselves liberated from one civilization, launched upon another to such odd gestures, such strange irreticences."

Example

More examples

"Quite unmoved these travellers sit reading—Thomas Hardy, perhaps—bridging abysses, preserving continuity, a little contemptuous of the excitement which is moving those who feel themselves liberated from one civilization, launched upon another to such odd gestures, such strange irreticences."

Etymology

From ir- + reticence, apparently coined by Virginia Woolf in Mrs. Dalloway.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.