offishness

Phil was teased by him now and again for his "offishness;" but Janice carefully managed that their interviews were not held in the presence of her parents, and so the elders did not come to a realising sense of the condition, but really believed that the courtship was advancing with due progress to the port of matrimony.

Janice Meredith Paul Leicester Ford 1883

To clarify, the "nonsense" is Pelosi's stand-offishness and the media infatuation with a meaningless gesture.

Should he have brought flowers? Nancy says, 'No thanks, Eric.' Jennifer Rubin 2011

And by the same token, how was I to guess that her brother Pat's offishness with me was anything else than temperamental gloominess of spirit?

Chapter 8 2010

"Even when we started out playing little art galleries in Montreal, we'd pick up on a certain level of cool stand-offishness in the crowd and just try and break though it," says Butler.

Arcade Fire: 'The cliched rock life never seemed that cool to us' Sean O 2010

The coolest thing is how typical kids in her class respond to her because of what appears to be her stand-offishness.

Latest McCain Robo-Slime Says Obama Will Slow Development Of "Life Saving Drugs" 2009

Last month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee endorsed Mr. Toomey, a switch from its early stand-offishness.

Arlen Specter's Dilemma 2009

Bechdel's literary allusions, ranging from Proust to The Wind in the Willows to The Great Gatsby, aren't just smart girl show-offishness: they become integral to the story, tools for understanding her father and her family through narrative, through parallels with the stories she knows, and through connections to the stories that were important to them.

Archive 2007-09-21 Book Nerd 2007

Bechdel's literary allusions, ranging from Proust to The Wind in the Willows to The Great Gatsby, aren't just smart girl show-offishness: they become integral to the story, tools for understanding her father and her family through narrative, through parallels with the stories she knows, and through connections to the stories that were important to them.

Graphic Lit Galore: Kabuishi, Bechdel, Robinson Book Nerd 2007

Not with his stand offishness The only people he'd let close to him were the three women in his life-his mother, Kate and Laura.

A Ring And A Promise Edwards, Andrea 1995

It connotes a restraint of feeling which more impulsive persons may mistake for absence of feeling; a reserve carried almost to the point of coldness; a quiet dignity which to a breezy Westerner seems like "stand-offishness."

Americans All Stories of American Life of To-Day Various