From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishself-effacingˌself-efˈfacing adjective MODESTnot wanting to attract attention to yourself or your achievements SYN modest a quiet self-effacing man —self-effacement noun [uncountable]
Examples from the Corpus
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 minor crisis with typical self-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 intellectual curiosity.• They were brilliant, self-effacing men.• Purple sandpipers arc 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-effacing scale.• But regarding 2 this teacher was not especially charismatic - in fact more self-effacing than naturally the centre of attention. 