pudeur

plural pudeurs

1. countableuncountableA sense of modesty, shame, or reserve, especially as relating to sexual matters.

   Nietzsche, the conquering Dionysus-creator, thus confesses to having the pudeurs of a blushing bride, or of his faking Weib, when she “gives herself.”

   1994, Janet Lungstrum, edited by Peter J. Burgard, Nietzsche Writing Woman/Woman Writing Nietzsche: The Sexual Dialectic of Palingenesis, quoted in Nietzche and the Feminine, →ISBN, page 152

   2 more examples

   Leslie felt confident enough of that also, but the pudeur of composition (when the author has written what he felt) made him shrink from so much talk about it.

   1861, Caroline Clive, chapter VII, in Why Paul Ferroll Killed His Wife, pages 137–8

   In preceding pages I have mooted a long-contested point of great importance, promising to recur it at a subsequent stage of this essay. I do so now because the pudeur of others has hitherto prevented its just discussion.

   1868, Paschal Beverly Randolph, chapter X, in After Death: Or, Disembodied Man, page 132