modesty
Americannoun
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modesties
plural
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the quality of being modest; freedom from vanity, boastfulness, etc.
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regard for decency of behavior, speech, dress, etc.
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simplicity; moderation.
noun
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the quality or condition of being modest
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(modifier) designed to prevent inadvertent exposure of part of the body
a modesty flap
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of modesty
From the Latin word modestia, dating back to 1525–35. See modest, -y 3
Explanation
Modesty is that shy feeling you get when someone brags about how great you are, or when you need to take off your shirt to go swimming and showing skin makes you squirm. If you blush, you’ve got some modesty. Modesty comes from the Latin modestus, which literally translates as “keeping due measure.” Knowing the correct measure of yourself is modesty, and when someone praises you too much, your modesty might kick in and make you want to tell them to be quiet. Modesty also means you keep things decent and not too outrageous, like wearing clothes that hide your skin, or painting your walls beige instead of covering them with glow-in-the-dark diamond wallpaper.
Vocabulary lists containing modesty
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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Beloved
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Purple Hibiscus
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It isn’t false modesty when he says he faces an “uphill battle.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
“Jumping into that concert in Sydney, and having an earpiece and seeing all this, was a little bit crazy,” says Nasa with well-mannered modesty, “but we somehow got through it.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026
Eschewing any pretense of modesty, he says the Kennedy decision was a dead letter.
From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2026
Women now refuse to turn the clock back even though strict rules on "modesty" and severe punishments are still the law of this land.
From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2026
He was unforgivably a foreigner then, foreign to them, foreign to me, foreign to everyone but Mama, who sat next to him smiling with pleased modesty.
From "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Houston
To make one costume seem like many, women are buying in vast quantities dickies, jabots, fichus, gilets, ruches, berthas, bibs, piccadillies, collets, modesties and ruffs.
From Time Magazine Archive
Secondly," pursued the Vicar with firmness, "this War is so great a business that, to my mind, it just swallows up—effaces—all scruples and modesties and mock-modesties about precedence and the like.
From Nicky-Nan, Reservist by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
She is kind to him, but hypocritical, affecting scruples, modesties, pieties, a heart and conscience, attitudinising, blushing false blushes, weeping crocodile tears; she is cruel to us, but sincere.
From Grey Roses by Henry Harland
This is no time for idle vanities," he said; "it's no time to indulge unreal modesties; and you have none of either if it were.
From The Shadow of a Crime A Cumbrian Romance by Sir Hall Caine
His conscience vexed him likewise, suggesting that his attitude had not been pure cousinly; and this shamed him, since he was still singularly unspotted from the world, noble modesties and decencies still paramount in him.
From The History of Sir Richard Calmady A Romance by Lucas Malet
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
