self-aplomb

Updated: May 15, 2025

They had once or twice met on the staircase, on which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two of respectful yet half-humorous courtesy, a courtesy which never really offends a true woman, although it often piques her self-aplomb by the slight assumption of superiority in the humorist.

Bret Harte - The Story of a Mine