What's the difference between aloof and coy?

Aloof


Definition:

  • (n.) Same as Alewife.
  • (adv.) At or from a distance, but within view, or at a small distance; apart; away.
  • (adv.) Without sympathy; unfavorably.
  • (prep.) Away from; clear from.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He strikes me more as a clever man - oh, very clever - than a necessarily charming man; for there's a distance, an aloofness.
  • (2) "He understands that the public see him as privileged, aloof, that they don't like him as a person," says Ganesh.
  • (3) The solution is for Hathaway to spend a year in sarky Manchester, where her attempts to go jogging will be thwarted by 324 days of rain, and if she so much as thinks about telling a Mancunian barmaid that she has poured those lagers fantastically well, she will swiftly learn an aloofness not taught in any American drama school.
  • (4) The psychopathological risk is the "burning out" of the subject, and the defences developed against it, such as humour (casualness), aloofness (abdication), deviance and drug-dependence.
  • (5) "I don't think he is aloof at all," says the Today editor.
  • (6) Britain had previously held aloof from the feuds of Europe's nation states.
  • (7) Does the colour of Campbell skin make us more likely to interpret her behaviour as intimidating, as difficult, rather than simply as aloof, or withdrawn?
  • (8) Fearing false accusation, adults still stay aloof even when a child might possibly be in danger.
  • (9) The mother is irascible, the father aloof; on the other hand, the parental combination "mother and father affectionate" is more common.
  • (10) They were aloof, blokey and arrogant," said one sports broadcasting veteran.
  • (11) I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional,” Clinton said.
  • (12) Our first response is often to bristle at any suggestion of censure, and in doing so we risk coming across as aloof, paternalistic and insensitive to the genuine concerns of others.
  • (13) Alan Yentob, the BBC's creative director, denied the charge that the programme makers are aloof and told the Observer that Danny Cohen, the head of BBC1, and other commissioning editors, including Younghusband, have repeatedly reviewed what went wrong and are changing procedures following the death of controversial figures.
  • (14) Since the extravert is the more sociable, excitement-seeking, carefree individual, while the introvert is more retiring, aloof and introspective, it would be worthwhile in future research to determine whether the dominance, vs. submissive or the high vs. low status dimension is the essential correlate of these spatial differences.
  • (15) Woman at centre of South Korean row says she 'deserves death' Read more Park has already been criticised for being aloof and relying on only a few longstanding confidantes.
  • (16) Ministers continue to grumble that the PM is too aloof, delegating messy domestic policy to the DPM.
  • (17) From the start, nobody has been less aloof, more assertive, nor more influential than the oil and gas industry.
  • (18) The main results of this study were the identification of: a) emotionally unstable patients (42%) who did not respond to the above mentioned selection criterion; b) stable psychological traits such as hostility, aloofness, extroversion as described in type A Behavior Pattern and c) the presence of secondary alexitimic responses suggesting a protective denial of the meaning of the disease.
  • (19) He is the hands-on chief executive to Cameron’s aloof chairman of the board and is therefore the natural focus of Labour’s opprobrium.
  • (20) She writes: If the Southern Rail fiasco has taught us anything it’s surely that travellers need to stand (conveniently) shoulder to shoulder against operating companies, rather than maintain their usual mutual aloofness.

Coy


Definition:

  • (a.) Quiet; still.
  • (a.) Shrinking from approach or familiarity; reserved; bashful; shy; modest; -- usually applied to women, sometimes with an implication of coquetry.
  • (a.) Soft; gentle; hesitating.
  • (v. t.) To allure; to entice; to decoy.
  • (v. t.) To caress with the hand; to stroke.
  • (v. i.) To behave with reserve or coyness; to shrink from approach or familiarity.
  • (v. i.) To make difficulty; to be unwilling.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But when you ask Lewis what exactly the Euston Project is, the editor-in-chief, a supremely confident showman, is irritatingly coy.
  • (2) Right now he's working on another sitcom for the BBC – he's coy about what, precisely.
  • (3) He often seems mysteriously amused, cocking an eyebrow and pulling a coy, wouldn’t-you-like-to-know smirk, but he likes to laugh out loud, too.
  • (4) I ll keep one eyes on u spurs hv a good luck this season #COYS 💋🙏👊❤ September 2, 2013 8.51pm BST This is what Assou-Ekotto's got to say about developments.
  • (5) Naomi Gryn with baby Sadie Joy, who was born by elective caesarean on 31 October At first I, too, was coy about telling anyone that I was pregnant.
  • (6) The commercial coyness is long gone, and moves to monetise the audience with new forms of advertising have often provoked backlashes.
  • (7) Asked about his future plans, Götze, whose contract with Bayern runs out in 2017, remained coy.
  • (8) While the Koch brothers remain coy about their candidate preferences, a number of billionaire donors in the Koch network, including hedge fund chieftains Paul Singer and Robert Mercer, have either made large donations to Super Pacs supporting candidates, or are expected to do so.
  • (9) The Labour manifesto is a little more coy: "To encourage freedom of speech and access to information, we will bring forward new legislation on libel to protect the right of defendants to speak freely."
  • (10) He won't reveal much about the new series, beyond a coy, "Well, there's a reunion that doesn't necessarily go to plan.
  • (11) His mother is a lawyer, and although there have been coy references to what his father does (along the lines of "something to do with commodities") he's actually a vice president of Morgan Stanley.
  • (12) But what’s damaging the lives of millions of schoolgirls and women is not daft and coy terms for periods, but being unable to talk about them at all, or being so ashamed that they have to dry their sanitary cloths under the beds or in the damp, getting urinary infections or worse.
  • (13) When asked about their actual prospects in the Senate and House of Representatives, both became coy.
  • (14) I met her, and I can only say that for a couple of hours she was smart, honest and a great talker – there was no fuss, no coyness, no sham and no act.
  • (15) This is idealistic stuff at the heart of his "Communitarian Conservatism" but one increasingly senses that it is theology which really underpins the argument, and that Bond is being coy about his own Anglicanism.
  • (16) Cameron, on the other hand, is less coy about who came out on top.
  • (17) Security and defence officials are coy about what they know of specific attacks.
  • (18) The replication of an avian influenza A, Fowl plague virus (FPV), Ulster 73 strain, was studied in chick embryo fibroblasts, assumed to be the natural host, and in cells of different origin such as LLC-MK2, Hep-2, Vero, KB and Mc Coy.
  • (19) He is coy when asked whether he was also approached about a senior boardroom role at HSBC around the same time, but frank about the choice he faced when the candidate for the RBS job – former Standard Chartered boss Mervyn, now Lord, Davies – pulled out.
  • (20) Chlamydia trachomatis strains were isolated from the endocervix by the Mc Coy technique in 31 (13.4%) of 232 women aged 18 to 26 years.

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