- timid, shy, and easily embarrassed
- showing an embarrassed timidity
Origin of bashful
(a)bash + -ful
A bashful little girl.
The definition of bashful is someone easily embarrassed or timid or shy.
A child hiding behind their parent is an example of bashful.
YourDictionary definition and usage example. Copyright © 2018 by LoveToKnow Corp
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bashful
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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bashful
adjective
- Shy, self-conscious, and awkward in the presence of others: “I never laughed, being bashful. / Lowering my head, I looked at the wall” ( Ezra Pound )
- Characterized by, showing, or resulting from shyness, self-consciousness, or awkwardness: “He had polite bashful manners and a low grownup voice” ( John Dos Passos )
Origin of bashful
From obsolete bash to abash, be abashed ( from Middle English basshen ) ( variant of abaishen, abasshen ; see abash . ) -fulRelated Forms:
- bash′ful·ly
adverb
- bash′ful·ness
noun
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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"Bashful." YourDictionary. LoveToKnow. www.yourdictionary.com/BASHFUL.
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Bashful. (n.d.). In YourDictionary. Retrieved from https://www.yourdictionary.com/BASHFUL
Adjective
(comparative more bashful, superlative most bashful)
- inclined to avoid notice
- reserved; disinclined to familiar approach.
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
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MLA Style
"Bashful." YourDictionary. LoveToKnow. www.yourdictionary.com/BASHFUL.
APA Style
Bashful. (n.d.). In YourDictionary. Retrieved from https://www.yourdictionary.com/BASHFUL
Sentence Examples
- Sizes are small, medium or large, and colors include bashful pink, champagne toast and bedtime blue.
- If you're bashful, or are already exceptionally tall, then a simple six and three-quarter inch model can be easily dressed up with the addition of little red dice resting within the Lucite hole of your shoe sole.
- However, if you're bashful, the presence of a g-string will grant you the illusion of safety because you are still, indeed, wearing underpants.
- Women really worked hard for that bashful glow, and it was something really valued as being important when it came to cosmetics and fashion.
- So he sat there trembling and afraid; for he was a timid, bashful man and did not like to be noticed.
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