Dictionary entry

Reticence

Webster's Dictionary 1913

Ret″i‐cence (?), n. [L. reticentia: cf. F. réticence.] 1. The quality or state of being reticent, or keeping silence; the state of holding one's tonque; refraining to speak of that which is suggested; uncommunicativeness.

Such fine reserve and noble reticence. Tennyson.

2. (Rhet.) A figure by which a person really speaks of a thing while he makes a show as if he would say nothingon the subject.