Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The state of being aloof, or of keeping at a distance; indifference.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun State of being aloof.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The state of being
aloof
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun indifference by personal withdrawal
- noun a disposition to be distant and unsympathetic in manner
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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True, I noticed a certain aloofness on the part of my general friends, but this I ascribed to the disapproval that was prevalent in my circles of my intended marriage with Ernest.
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Trethaway, who had felt the aloofness from the start, caught an opportunity with Frona while Captain Alexander and Corliss were being pleasant to Mrs. Trethaway.
CHAPTER 21 2010
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Part of what students currently see as an aloofness is just running to the next obligation ...
Discourse.net: Patricia D. White to Be Dean of University of Miami School of Law 2009
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Again, not to kick up sand, but Bush has a certain aloofness to him.
Olive Stone's W Biopic - What and Who? « FirstShowing.net 2008
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The ability to see for one's self is attainable, not by mixing with crowds and ascertaining how they look at things, but by a certain aloofness and self-containment.
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The ability to see for one's self is attainable, not by mixing with crowds and ascertaining how they look at things, but by a certain aloofness and self-containment.
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There is also a certain aloofness, a peculiar but understandable arrogance.
Try Anything Twice 1938
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Maryam claims onlooker status to distance herself from the blithering Donaldsons and to dodge the advances of Bitsy’s widowed father, but her aloofness is really ontological, an innate standoffishness familiar to Tyler’s readers.
New Fiction 2006
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Maryam claims onlooker status to distance herself from the blithering Donaldsons and to dodge the advances of Bitsy’s widowed father, but her aloofness is really ontological, an innate standoffishness familiar to Tyler’s readers.
New Fiction 2006
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Rabelaisian ditty, a gross amazing jest, a chuckle of deep Satyric humour; -- and the monstrous "thickness" of Life, its friendly aplomb and nonchalance, its grotesque irreverence, its shy shrewd common-sense, its tough fibres, and portentous indifference to "distinction"; tumbles us over in the mud -- for all our "aloofness" -- and roars over us, like a romping bull-calf!
Visions and Revisions A Book of Literary Devotions John Cowper Powys 1917
yarb commented on the word aloofness
Aloofness is not that easily achieved.
Colt's is the only foolproof way yet known.
- Peter Reading, Address Protector, from Nothing for Anyone, 1977
June 26, 2008