Introvert
noun : one whoever characteristics are characterized by introversion specially : a booked or timid individual who likes spending some time alone
We are beginning with introvert because it’s the most basic of the set. We all know, of course, that standard doesn’t mean terrifically boring. You’ll find so many interesting details about introvert, including its need as verb, which predates their noun use. Because the mid-17th millennium, introvert has meant “to make inward or in upon it self,” with increased certain definitions of “to concentrate or direct upon oneself” and “to generate psychological introversion in” developing within the years.
The adjective introverted normally more than the noun. This has been made use of since no less than 1683, mainly with all the “possessing a booked or timid characteristics typically with an inclination to solitude” which means’s compared with extroverted.
At the same time, the noun introvert provides an unknown and technical utilize which means “something which can be introverted”—it’s used on such great appendages because eyestalks of some snails and the retractile proboscis of a sipunculid worm. Which use dates into the late 19th century, even though the one you mark yourself after getting a personality test times to your very early 20th.
Aloof
adjective : got rid of or distant either literally or psychologically
If any person lobs this term at you antichat, dear introvert, go ahead and look down, just like you want toward a distant horizon, the guarantee of land after weeks at water a small fire burning-in your own cardiovascular system.
While we usually experience aloof as an adjective, its longer record can be as an adverb used in combination with the meaning “at a range.” The adverbial need is the one American publisher Herman Melville made use of many, usually in the collocation “hold aloof”:
… i’ve discussed that I familiar with keep my self notably aloof from bulk of seamen onboard the Neversink … — Herman Melville, White-Jacket, 1850
It’s shock that aloof was in Melville’s operating vocabulary: they starts in nautical utilize. The adverb was previously accustomed suggest “to windward”—that was, toward the movement where the wind is blowing. Loof are a variant of luff, which refers to the work of sailing a ship nearer the wind plus the forward edge of a fore-and-aft cruise.
Diminishing violet
noun : a bashful or retiring individual
Ah, the shrinking violet. An individual explained thusly are obviously not getting smaller; the phrase shrink may typically have related to shrinking in size, but it’s furthermore familiar with indicate “to recoil instinctively” and “to keep yourself right back.” Are you aware that violet little bit, that term has many incorporate making use of the meaning of “an overly fastidious, small, or retiring person,” as Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary research.
Inspite of the human being software of each and every section of this ingredient phrase, shrinking violet was utilized practically before its figurative usage developed into the late 19th century:
… while, unconscious once the girl of Ceres, gathering flora if the Hell master received almost, regarding the modification that anticipated her and the grim appeal that approached on her destiny, Helen bends still on the financial odorous with diminishing violets … — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Lucretia, 1846
These are perhaps not a species of the Viola genus; Bulwer-Lytton is probably anthropomorphically recommending the blossoms are huddling or cowering throughout the lender.
Wallflower
noun 1 : an individual who from timidity or unpopularity remains regarding the sidelines of a personal activity (instance a-dance) 2 : a bashful or reserved person
From inside the sixteenth century the only real wallflower labeled was a genuine flower. Wallflower is the common name of a genus (technically genus Erysimum) of about 180 species of plant life from inside the mustard parents (that’d feel Brassicaceae, for you botany nerds). The name comes from the fact that wallflowers frequently expand from chinks in wall space.
The significance of wallflower that put the keyword within this number date towards the early nineteenth 100 years, whenever it ended up being usually used to explain a person waiting across the wall structure at a personal purpose:
But such simple and easy sauntering reports are just like Scotch reels, with no normal closing, save the tiredness of these engaged. Thus I may as well clipped small my personal mazy dancing and resume simultaneously my personal the proper position as a ‘wall flower,’ with an unceremonious adieu towards type and polite audience. — Caroline Matilda Kirkland, A Brand New Home—Exactly Who’ll Stick To?, 1839