(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.
Simper
Definition:
(v. i.) To smile in a silly, affected, or conceited manner.
(v. i.) To glimmer; to twinkle.
(n.) A constrained, self-conscious smile; an affected, silly smile; a smirk.
Example Sentences:
(1) After months of simpering, “some old-fashioned ass-kicking” may be back on the cards.
(2) Her electric blue suit at the swearing-in ceremony was too bright for some and too tight for others – "but she's so beautiful," declared the critic in La Repubblica, simultaneously strict and simpering, "that she's instantly forgiven".
(3) He tossed Shakespeare into a modern-day, thinly veiled Miami in the electrifying Romeo + Juliet and sent Nicole Kidman wafting, purring and simpering through bohemian Paris in Moulin Rouge!
(4) She has a simpering second serve and is primarily known for her defensive impenetrability.
(5) The skeptics include Adrian Simper, the strategy director of the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which will be among those organizations deciding whether to back the PRISM plan.
(6) While the TV audience has criticised Fernandez-Versini’s simpering, and complained that Cowell has lost his nasty edge, Brown has proved herself the most watchable judge.
(7) "From community projects to a share of the profits, renewable energy to Fairtrade products, the Co-operative believe that when the benefits are passed around it's good for everyone," went the simpering script.
(8) Ruskin, played by Joshua McGuire, is a simpering Blackadderish caricature of an art intellectual: a lisping, red-headed, salon fop.
(9) GEH says Simper is mistaken and that the technology is largely proven.
(10) I couldn’t possibly second-guess the NAO report,” he simpered.
(11) No one expects honourable conduct from an immoral institution, whose lecturers simpered like besotted lovers at Muammar Muhammad Gaddafi , while their masters pocketed Libyan money.
(12) Domhnall Gleeson Gleeson, who played a Weasley in Harry Potter and a simpering bandit in the Coen brothers' True Grit, may be more recognizable to audiences.
(13) "The Sweet Danish Life: Copenhagen: Cool, Creative, Carefree," simpered National Geographic; "The Nordic Countries: The Next Supermodel" , boomed the Economist; "Copenhagen really is wonderful for so many reasons," gushed the Guardian.
(14) In one of the wonderful Reith lectures Perry gave last year , he concluded that today’s art establishment is something of a dictatorship, simpering about the avant garde, snobbish towards the middle ground.
(15) Meryl Streep is nominated for her simpering turn in the dreadful Hope Springs and Nicole Kidman for her high-camp car-crash in The Paperboy (the centrepiece of which involves her urinating over an insensible Zac Efron ).
(16) In the wake of repeated criticism by conservative politicians and the publication of a paper documenting numerous allegations of “ABC bias” by the extreme libertarian think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, the veteran media reporter Errol Simper once wrote that the ABC was being subjected to “the most persistent orchestrated campaign of vilification” in its history.
(17) The simpering British politicians cower before him, but Gandolfini's General Miller is just about the only character who could feasibly face him down, and their brief encounter is one of the movie's highlights.
(18) Simper is also concerned that the plutonium metal, once prepared for the reactor, would be even more vulnerable to theft for making bombs than the powdered oxide.
(19) Says Paul Simper, a journalist who worked with her extensively in the 1980s: "None of the other British solo women from Sade's time, such as Alison Moyet or Carmel, made any impact in the US at all.
(20) She already looks to have what it takes to win, but as the series rolls on over the coming weeks, I hope that she won't fall prey to those who would all too readily accuse her of flirting, sulking, batting her eyelids or simpering her way to the top.