self-effacing• In those days women were expected to be quiet, passive and self-effacing.• As a race the Brits may sometimes be too self-effacing for our own good.• Physically attractive and possessed of considerable personal charm, his demeanour was self-effacing, gracious and polite.• She'd been almost too self-effacing, he thought.• Jack faced this minorcrisis with typicalself-effacing humor.• Her husband was a quiet, self-effacing man who spent much of his time in his study.• A shy, self-effacing man, Williams was self-taught, and showed an independent and determined intellectualcuriosity.• They were brilliant, self-effacing men.• Purplesandpipersarc the most self-effacing of birds.• Most guitarists know people who can outplay them in some way and so most register somewhere on the meek and self-effacingscale.• But regarding 2 this teacher was not especially charismatic - in fact more self-effacing than naturally the centre of attention.