different between retiring vs unsocial

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???ta?(?)???/
• Rhymes: -a?????

Adjective

retiring

1. introverted, liking privacy and seclusion.
   • 1911, Theodore Dreiser, Jennie Gerhardt, Chapter LX:

     Lester was in the thick of social and commercial affairs; he walked in paths to which Jennie's retiring soul had never aspired.

Translations

Verb

retiring

1. present participle of retire

   Today is the party for our retiring co-workers.

Noun

retiring (plural retirings)

1. retirement
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Apophthegms

     One day of those his retirings ^[sic], giving out that he was sick, his father Antigonus came on the sudden to visit him, and met a fair dainty youth coming out of his chamber.

English

Etymology

un- +? social

Adjective

unsocial (comparative more unsocial, superlative most unsocial)

1. Not social.
   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

     The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles.

2. Not seeking or showing the desire for the company of others; inhospitable.

   • The cupbearer shrugged up his shoulders in displeasure. "I thought to have lodged him in the solere chamber," said he; "but since he is so unsocial to Christians, e'en let him take the next stall to Isaac the Jew's. […]

Derived terms

• unsocially

Anagrams

• Nicolaus, cousinal