timidity

American  

[ti-mid-i-tee] / tɪˈmɪd ɪ ti /

Sometimes timidness

noun

• timidities
  plural

1. the state or quality of lacking in self-assurance, courage, or bravery.

   The stakes are too high for the officials charged with making decisions to succumb to timidity and refuse to act.

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• overtimidity
  noun
• overtimidness
  noun
• untimidness
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• timidities
  plural

---

Etymology

Origin of timidity

First recorded in 1510–20; from Latin timiditās, equivalent to timid(us) + -i- connecting vowel + -tās noun suffix; see timid ( def. ), -i- ( def. ), -ty ² ( def. )

---

Explanation

Do you suffer from timidity? If so, you probably feel uneasy in new places and situations. You might fear having to make decisions. But as you get more comfortable, your timidity will go away. The noun timidity is related to the Latin word timidus, from timere, meaning “to fear.” In fact, fear is often a cause of timidity — fear of the unknown, fear of not knowing what to do. For example, you might experience timidity in visiting a country for the first time because you aren't sure of the local customs or you don't speak the language well. Because you are afraid of embarrassing yourself, you hold back.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

timidity timidities

And no one is better equipped to ignore counsels of timidity than Mr. Trump.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026

Choices, of course, have to be made, and timidity won’t get the job done.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026

But this is not the time for judicial timidity.

From Slate ● Feb. 13, 2025

Holt became the team captain in the media’s game of feigned ignorance and real timidity.

From Salon ● Jul. 21, 2024

He thought her unnatural; she looked at him as a man might look, without timidity or fear, and her voice could be very loud and as angry as a lion’s roar.

From "Inkheart" by Cornelia Funke

It is a standing challenge, a rebuke, to the rigidities and timidities of the newly dominant right and left.

From Time Magazine Archive

But few will fail to join in the familiar battlecry of her hedonism: "Away with hypocrisies, timidities, doubts!"

From Time Magazine Archive

What Are We to Do?, a study of the "rise and fall" of the British labor movement, is an urbane, inquisitional chronicle of missed opportunities, compromises, retreats, timidities, defeats.

From Time Magazine Archive

This culmination of a series of sentimental and financial timidities seemed to me to indicate that the Board was not acting fearlessly for the best interests of the students.

From Time Magazine Archive

It is the poet himself who gives expression, in the pathetic and erratic confessions of Solness, to his doubts, his craven timidities, his selfish secrets, and his terror at the uniformity of his "luck."

From Henrik Ibsen by Edmund Gosse

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---

Related Words

• cowardice

---