Adjective

(en adjective)

(archaic): Lacking confidence in others; distrustful.

Lacking confidence in one's self; distrustful of one's own powers; not self-reliant; timid; modest; bashful; characterized by modest reserve.

*

Having therefore—but hold, as we are diffident of our own abilities, let us here invite a superior power to our assistance.

* {{quote-book

, year=1960 , author= , title=(Jeeves in the Offing) , section=chapter VIII , passage=At an early point in these exchanges I had started to sidle to the door, and I now sidled through it, rather like a diffident crab on some sandy beach trying to avoid the attentions of a child with a spade.}}

Adjective

(en adjective)

Opposing; offering resistance (to).

* 1819 , Lord Byron, Don Juan , II.108:

There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung / Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave, / From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung, / Should suck him back to her insatiate grave [...].

* 2008 , Kern Alexander et al., The World Trade Organization and Trade in Services , p. 222:

They are reluctant to the inclusion of a necessity test, especially of a horizontal nature, and emphasize, instead, the importance of procedural disciplines [...].

Not wanting to take some action; unwilling.

She was reluctant to lend him the money