What's the difference between coy and shy?

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.

Shy


Definition:

  • (superl.) Easily frightened; timid; as, a shy bird.
  • (superl.) Reserved; coy; disinclined to familiar approach.
  • (superl.) Cautious; wary; suspicious.
  • (a.) To start suddenly aside through fright or suspicion; -- said especially of horses.
  • (v. t.) To throw sidewise with a jerk; to fling; as, to shy a stone; to shy a slipper.
  • (n.) A sudden start aside, as by a horse.
  • (n.) A side throw; a throw; a fling.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Philip Shaw, chief economist at broker Investec, expects CPI to hit 5.1%, just shy of the 5.2% reached in September 2008, as the utility hikes alone add 0.4% to inflation.
  • (2) The Vc was dramatically increased in the qk, slightly decreased in the shi, and close to control in the mld.
  • (3) Twellman has steadily grown in confidence as he settles into his role, though whether as a player or as an advocate he was never shy about voicing his opinions.
  • (4) It’s going to affect everybody.” The six songs from Rebel Heart released thus far do not shy away from controversy: one, Illuminati, mocks the various conspiracy theories on the internet that implicate a variety of entertainers – including Jay-Z and Lady Gaga – in membership of a shadowy ruling elite.
  • (5) But today, Americans increasingly no longer shy away from saying they oppose mosques on the grounds that Muslims are a threat or different.
  • (6) In general, we've shied away from offering opinions on the rest of the industry – I don't think it's appropriate.
  • (7) Never camera-shy, he also leaves his legacy on celluloid too.
  • (8) On the other hand, if past experience is anything to go by, this government isn’t shy of a U-turn ; and, if Whittingdale and his advisers aren’t completely deaf, they may at least detect that he would do well to keep the relish out of his voice as he announces the steps he intends to take.
  • (9) It’s as if they were a team away from the team, and they’re not shy of plugging into it.
  • (10) And just a few games shy of making history, the Warriors blew a 17-point lead and fell to the Minnesota Timberwolves – another team that didn’t even come close to making the playoffs – after forcing the game into overtime.
  • (11) She was a little shy as a child, a big reader who loved movies as much as books and thought from an early age that she would be a writer.
  • (12) By contrast, in Shy-Drager cases there was a highly significant reduction in intermediolateral column cells compared with the normal cords.
  • (13) A ceremony will take place at which Jolie will receive the child, who is said to be healthy, likeable, a bit shy and keen on football.
  • (14) A young, shy jihadi named Fouad took us into an abandoned building, where a meal was spread out on the floor.
  • (15) Sterling fell 1.3% against the dollar to $1.6495, just shy of a session low $1.6475.
  • (16) Estimates of panda numbers in the wild vary enormously due to the difficulty of collecting data about the notoriously shy animal, which lives in dense, high-altitude vegetation: the last survey required more than 35,000 volunteers.
  • (17) The move signals a change for Democrats , who have traditionally shied away from gun control in a state with a pioneer tradition of gun ownership.
  • (18) What's more, his genial stiffness and shy self-awareness give him a kind of awkward dignity compared to the preening smugness of Cruz.
  • (19) Pausing while much of the audience booed the protester, Obama responded: "We're not going to shy away from things that are uncomfortable."
  • (20) Another shy Tory, who teaches at a secondary school in north Kent, says she voted Ukip in the European elections.

Words possibly related to "coy"