Self-effacing

Definition: Self-effacing

Self-effacing

Adjective

1. Reluctant to draw attention to yourself.

Date "self-effacing" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1917. (references)

Synonym: Self-effacing

Synonym: reticent (adj). (additional references)

Crosswords: Self-effacing

English words defined with "self-effacing": humble. (references)

Specialty definitions using "self-effacing": three-letter acronym. (references)

"Self-effacing" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Self-effacing" is used about 70 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	100%	70	39,981

Language		Translations for "self-effacing"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		i druajtur (backward, bashful, chary, coy, diffluent, faint-hearted, mousey, mousy, shy, timid). (various references)

Bulgarian		свит (contracted, pursy, shrank, shrunken, tense), самообезличаващ се. (various references)

Chinese		自我轻视 (self-effacement). (various references)

Finnish		alttiiksiantava (self-sacrificing). (various references)

German		zurückhaltend (cagey, cautious, chary, diffident, distant, dull, guarded, guardedly, incommunicative, refraining, reserved, restrained, restrainedly, restraining, reticent, retiring, temperate, undemonstrative, unobtrusive). (various references)

Greek		μετριόφονας, ταπεινός (abject, humble). (various references)

Hungarian		félrevonuló. (various references)

Italian		modesto (chaste, coy, demure, diffident, homely, humble, inconspicuous, lowly, moderate, modest, plain, quiet, temperate, unassuming, unpretentious). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		没我的 (selfless). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		ぼつがてき (selfless). (various references)

Pig Latin		elf-effacingsay

Portuguese		singelo (homely, plain, simple, single, straightforward, unassuming), simples (a.b.c., abc, artless, chaste, classic, classical, convenient, easy, frugal, green, guileless, homely, homespun, humble, ingest, innocuous, inosculate, matter of fact, mere, modest, natural, one handed, outage, plain, primary election, pure, regular, sheer, shirt-sleeve, simple, simple-hearted, single, singles, smattering, soft, sole, solitary, straightforward, unaffected, unassuming, unlaboured, unostentatious, unsophisticated, unvarnished, unworldly), sem pretensões (unassuming, unpretending, unpretentious), modesto (blushful, coy, demure, homely, humble, low-minded, modest, plain, shamefaced, unassertive, unassuming, unostentatious, unpretending, unpretentious). (various references)

Russian		скромный (decent, demure, hamble, humble, low life, mean, modest, unassertive, unassuming, unobtrusive, unostentatious, unpretending, unpretentious). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		skroman (diffident, douce, frugal, humble, modest, retiring, unassuming, unostentatious, unpretending, unpretentious). (various references)

Spanish		humilde (humble, low, lower, lowly, mean, poor, small). (various references)

Swedish		självutplånande. (various references)

Ukranian		соромливий (bashful, blushful, blushing, chary, coy, humble, ovine, pudent, self conscious, shamefaced, shy, timid, trembly, willyard). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-c-e-e-f-f-f-g-i-l-n-s"
	-3 letters: caffeines, sclaffing.
	-4 letters: agencies, caffeine, caffeins, effacing, elegiacs, ensilage, faiences, feelings, fenagles, fiancees, finagles, fleecing, legacies, lineages, salience.
	-5 letters: affines, angelic, anglice, caffein, ceasing, cleanse, effaces, elegiac, encages, enfaces, enlaces, facings, faience, fancies, fascine, feasing, fecials, feeling, felines, fenagle, fiancee, fiances, finagle, finales, flanges, fleeing, galenic, glances, incages, inlaces, lacings, leafing, leasing, license.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.