shy1
/ʃʌɪ
/adjective (shyer, shyest)
1Nervous or timid in the company of other people: I was pretty shy at school a shy smile...
- Jayalalitha, a once shy, timid, tiny introvert, was so outstanding in her studies that her portrait hangs in her school as a star alumnus with academic excellence as her only passion.
- His smile is shy, almost gentle, and his eyes dart nervously around him.
- I've gone from being shy and timid, to being quietly confident and assured.
Synonyms
bashful, diffident, timid, sheepish, reserved, reticent, introverted, retiring, self-effacing, shrinking, withdrawn, timorous, mousy, fearful, apprehensive, nervous, hesitant, reluctant, doubting, insecure, wary, suspicious, chary, unconfident, inhibited, constrained, repressed, self-conscious, embarrassed, coy, demure, abashed, modest, humble, meek
1.1 (shy of/about) Slow or reluctant to do (something): the wealthy have become less shy of displaying their privilege...
- I wanted to take things slow, and was shy about being intimate.
- She has never been shy of expressing her feminist opinions.
1.2 [in combination] Having a dislike of or aversion to a specified thing: he was very car shy when he came here
1.3(Of a wild mammal or bird) reluctant to remain in sight of humans: otters are very shy animals...
- The Department of Conservation has been on the hunt for our national icon in the Western Bay since November - but so far the shy birds have remained out of reach.
- The shy birds were reluctant to cache when observed and often made fake deposits.
- Build a brush pile near your feeder to make sparrows, towhees, and other shy birds feel more at home, but be sure it won't harbor roaming cats.
2 (shy of) informal Less than; short of: the shares are 29p shy of their flotation price...
- I had studied and put too much effort into this test to have achieved 150 points shy of a perfect score.
- The company's shares trade just shy of the level that analysts say the printer business is worth all on its own.
- It was he's 24th goal of the season, just one short of his all-time best and two shy of his record achieved many years ago at the other club.
2.1Before: he left school just shy of his fourteenth birthday...
- Days shy of the event's 15th anniversary, he was detained by authorities.
- Just shy of its 180th birthday, the oldest political party in the country voted itself out of existence in early December.
- He was just shy of his 60th birthday and certainly had much more to do in his life.
3(Of a plant) not bearing flowers or fruit well or prolifically.A new work by Alan Bennett is like a shy plant that only flowers every now and then, but when it does gives enormous pleasure....
- Cyclamen Cyclamen are subtler and more elegant than poinsettia with delicate, silky, shy flowers and the dappled heart-shaped leaves.
verb (shies, shying, shied) [no object]
1(Especially of a horse) start suddenly aside in fright at an object, noise, or movement: their horses shied at the unfamiliar sight...
- His horse shied to the right, making room on the path for the newcomer.
- Hoss jumped, and the horse shied, the twin jolts coming together in the agony of his jawbone.
- But the white horse shied away from her, his wild eyes showing their whites, ears laid back in fear.
1.1 (shy from) Avoid doing or becoming involved in (something) due to nervousness or a lack of confidence: don’t shy away from saying what you think...
- They avoided fighting whenever possible, yet did not shy from combat if it closed in.
- We are not shying from the responsibility but to put a three-year-old on the operating table when he's smiley and happy is not an option.
- To its credit, the picture doesn't shy from depicting the horrific reality of execution by electric chair, although it stops short of coming down firmly in an anti-death penalty stance.
Synonyms
flinch, demur, recoil, hang back;
have scruples about, scruple about, have misgivings about, have qualms about, be averse to, be chary of, not be in favour of, be against, be opposed to, be diffident about, be bashful about, be shy about, fight shy of, be coy about;
be loath to, scruple to, be reluctant to, be unwilling to, be disinclined to, not be in the mood to, be indisposed to, be sorry to, be slow to, be hesitant to, be ashamed to, be afraid to, hesitate to, hate to, not like to, not have the heart to, drag one's feet/heels over, waver about, vacillate about, think twice about, baulk at, quail at, mind doing something
informal be cagey about, boggle at
archaic disrelish
noun
A sudden startled movement, especially of a frightened horse.
Derivatives
shyer
- She didn't really fit in, she stood out from the rest, far more beautiful and a lot shyer.
- Calvin seemed a bit shyer now and he wasn't smiling quite so much.
- With room-mates, the shyer of the two tended to change more emotionally.
Origin
Old English scēoh '(of a horse) easily frightened', of Germanic origin; related to German scheuen 'shun', scheuchen 'scare'; compare with eschew. The verb dates from the mid 17th century.
Old English scēoh was applied to horses meaning ‘easily frightened’. The word's application to people is seen from the start of the 17th century. The shy meaning ‘fling, throw’ of coconut shy is a late 18th-century word of unknown origin.
Rhymes
shy2
/ʃʌɪ/dated
verb (shies, shying, shied) [with object]
Fling or throw (something) at a target: he tore the spectacles off and shied them at her
Synonyms
throw, toss, fling, hurl, cast, lob, launch, flip, pitch, dash, aim, direct, propel, bowl
informal chuck, heave, sling, buzz, whang, bung
North American informal peg
Australian informal hoy
New Zealand informal bish
noun (plural shies)
An act of flinging or throwing something at a target.Non-striker Gordon Webster, running to the danger end, would have been well short of safety had the shy at the stumps been on target....
- First class casters could reach way out to shy fish, and distant mangroves.
Phrases
have a shy at
Origin
Late 18th century: of unknown origin.