What's the difference between bashful and coy?

Bashful


Definition:

  • (a.) Abashed; daunted; dismayed.
  • (a.) Very modest, or modest excess; constitutionally disposed to shrink from public notice; indicating extreme or excessive modesty; shy; as, a bashful person, action, expression.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Someone close to the trust told me in the autumn, "Both parties are bashing the BBC – it used to alternate – but the Tories may have done a bigger deal with [longstanding BBC foe Rupert] Murdoch than Labour did in the mid-90s.
  • (2) They complained that while in Washington Cameron launched another round of Brussels-bashing when he was supposed to be promoting the merits of a potential gamechanging trade pact between the EU and the US.
  • (3) Last week Lebedev posted photos from his Hampton Court bash on his personal LiveJournal blog .
  • (4) In the end, Miliband's measures have a psychological effect not dissimilar to the youth-bashing policies that have come before: student fees, cuts to the education maintenance allowance and housing benefit for the under-25s , and the prioritising of private landlords at the expense of affordable housing.
  • (5) But at least it was offering something positive, not just bashing the Tories, like everything else.” But for many, it was symbolic of a vague and complacent Labour campaign strategy that would, ultimately, doom them to one of their worst ever election defeats.
  • (6) There is the Usdaw reception in the Hilton on Sunday, the Communication Workers Union drinks on Monday and a Unison bash on Tuesday.
  • (7) They are the only party which has refused to be drawn into the immigrant-bashing competition with the others, and the only which proposes a vote in the general elections for EU citizens based on residency, rather than nationality.
  • (8) For example, it's fashionable to continually bash the Taliban regarding women, especially when a massive Western army has invaded, but remain silent over women who suffer under Western foreign policies (I posted a link of a young Syrian woman being strangled in public, but it was deleted instantly).
  • (9) Swing your gaze from the aged and infirm to your fit and healthy peers here and abroad embracing fascism and poor-bashing.
  • (10) But Panmure's Zonneveld isn't so bashful - - he's got a target price of 570p.
  • (11) Jindal bashed the debate moderators to a crowd of roughly 50, saying: “The mainstream media lost the debate.” He went on to say that the GOP should take “a free market approach” to debates and “have as many debates as possible and let candidates decide which ones they should go to”.
  • (12) OFFICE COST PER DESK $10,430 pa Banker-bashing rating ■ ZURICH PROS The financial sector accounts for 6% of all jobs in Switzerland and 16% of tax revenue.
  • (13) If it means bashing your head against the wall, or whatever.
  • (14) I thought bashing bureaucrats was purely my domain.
  • (15) Theresa May has been accused of irresponsible “civil service bashing” by the mandarins’ union after using an interview to criticise Whitehall staff.
  • (16) But I will also defend my record, and will not take lectures on “the politics of division” from parties that bash immigrants and those on welfare benefits, or from politicians disgraced by expenses scandals, discredited by lies told to justify war, and intent on scapegoating the vulnerable in our society for an economic crisis caused by the most powerful.
  • (17) Downing Street has refused to release the guest list for this year's bash at the private Hurlingham members' club in Fulham, west London, but the gleaming Rolls-Royces and Jaguars streaming through the gates gave a hint of the wealthy passengers heading inside.
  • (18) Capitalism took a bashing in 2015: Corbynomics , the rise of anti-austerity parties Podemos and Syriza, Hillary Clinton slamming our culture of short-termism, COP21 protests and more.
  • (19) For many years afterwards, the family bashed their heads against a brick wall of indifference and worse.
  • (20) Debate moderators Anderson Cooper, Dana Bash, and Juan Carlos Lopez are sure to ask some tough questions of the candidates.

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.

Words possibly related to "coy"