prudery vs reticence

prudery

noun
  • Prudish behaviour 

  • The condition of being prudish; prudishness 

reticence

noun
  • Avoidance of saying or reluctance to say too much; discretion, tight-lippedness; (countable) an instance of acting in this manner. 

  • Followed by of: discretion or restraint in the use of something. 

  • Often followed by to: hesitancy or reluctance (to do something). 

  • A silent and reserved nature. 

verb
  • To deliberately not listen or pay attention to; to disregard, to ignore. 

How often have the words prudery and reticence occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )