self-effacement

[self-i-feys-muhnt, self-]

noun

1. the act or fact of keeping oneself in the background, as in humility.

self-effacement

noun

1. the act of making oneself, one's actions, etc, inconspicuous, esp because of humility or timidity

Other Word Forms

• self-effacing adjective
• self-effacingly adverb
• self-effacingness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of self-effacement¹

First recorded in 1865–70

Example Sentences

“Acting felt like the thing I could fake, because everybody else was so good at everything,” she said with typical self-effacement.

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Modesty, wit, self-effacement: They shape every line of his work.

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While the spectacle of awards shows can be embarrassing, a cringe-making combo of self-congratulation and self-effacement, the hype always gets me in the end.

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As the interview winds down, Sharpton calls himself, with an uncharacteristic mix of self-effacement and understatement, “some fat guy from Brooklyn who lost the weight and got some stuff done.”

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“One of the reasons Boseman was such a marvelous actor was his genius for self-effacement, his ability to hold the spotlight without dominating it,” Chang writes.

Read more on Los Angeles Times