Dictionary Definition
standoffish adj : lacking cordiality; unfriendly;
"a standoffish manner" [syn: offish]
User Contributed Dictionary
Quotations
- 1922, James Joyce,
Ulysses, episode 16,
- His initial impression was that he was a bit standoffish or not over effusive.
- 1928, D. H.
Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ch. 7,
- They were always a haughty family, standoffish in a way, as they've a right to be.
Related terms
References
- Dictionary.com
- "standoffish" in Encarta® World English Dictionary [North American Edition] © & (P)2007 Microsoft Corporation.
- "standoffish" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary © Cambridge University Press 2007.
- "standoffish" in Compact Oxford English Dictionary, © Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
- Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary, 1987-1996.
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Olympian, above all that,
aloof, backward, bashful, blank, chilled, chilly, cold, constrained, cool, detached, discreet, distant, eremitic, exclusive, expressionless, forbidding, frigid, frosty, guarded, haughty, highfalutin, icy, impassive, impersonal, inaccessible, insociable, introverted, lordly, misanthropic, modest, offish, pompous, reclusive, remote, removed, repressed, reserved, restrained, reticent, retiring, seclusive, shrinking, snooty, solitary, standoff, subdued, suppressed, unaffable, unapproachable, uncompanionable,
uncongenial,
undemonstrative,
unexpansive,
unfriendly, ungenial, unsociable, unsocial, withdrawn