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Shy   /ʃaɪ/   Listen
Shy

adjective
(compar. shyer; superl. shyest)
1.
Lacking self-confidence.  Synonyms: diffident, timid, unsure.  "Problems that call for bold not timid responses" , "A very unsure young man"
2.
Short.
3.
Wary and distrustful; disposed to avoid persons or things.



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"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books



... but of a more sweet and motherly kind, lights the face of the Madonna della Scala. The composition is somewhat in the portrait style, showing the mother in half length, seated under a sort of canopy. The babe clings closely to her neck, turning about at the spectator with a glance half shy and half mischievous. His coyness awakens a smile of tender amusement in the ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... laughin' en jokin'. Our w'ite folks, dee des spized 'im kaze he bin wid Sherman army. Dee say he wuz Yankee; but I tell um, suh, dat ef Yankee look dat away dee wuz cert'n'y mighty like we-all. Mistiss, she ain' never go 'bout 'im wiles he sick; en Miss Lady, she keep mighty shy, en she tu'n up her nose eve'y time she year 'im laugh. Oh, yes, suh; dee cert'n'y spize de Yankees endurin' er dem times. Dee hated um rank, suh. I tell um, I say: 'You-all des wait. Dee ain' no nicer man dan w'at he is, en you-all des wait tell you know 'im.' Shoo! I des might ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... hauteur with hauteur, but I was not sure it would work here, and I trembled inwardly while I spoke so calmly. But it did. Her lids dropped for a moment, and a soft color stole up to her temples. When she lifted her eyes again, there was a sweet, shy light ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... often seek the company of persons. There are some birds, you know, that seem happy only when they are near people. Of course, they are somewhat shy, but as a rule they prefer to be near people. While the Skylark does not seek to be near persons, yet it is not afraid ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... of the answer, given in a shy voice, astonished him. It was his turn to be embarrassed and he strove to turn the ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... stealing lightly over the Connecticut hills, a shy, tender thing of delicate green winging its way with witch-rod over the wooded ridges and the sylvan paths of Diane Westfall's farm. And with the spring had come a great hammering by the sheepfold and the stables where a smiling horde of metropolitan workmen, sheltered ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... died long ago. He had been a comfort to my mother Marie, in days of sadness,—before my birth, for she was never sad after I came,—and she loved him, and he clung to her. He was a round-faced boy, with hair almost white; awkward and shy, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... do, and lived to see Kirstie grow to be a decent, religiously minded young woman. Nor did the lass want for good looks in a sober way, nor for wit when it came to reading books; but in speech she was shy beyond reason, and would turn red and stammer if a stranger but addressed her. I think she could never forget that her birth had been on the wrong side of the blanket, and, supposing folks to be pitying her for it, sought to ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... after a bit"—here Pilot Matthey turned to me with one of those shy smiles which, as they reveal his childish, simple heart, compel you to love the man. "It struck me after a bit that a hemn-tune mightn't come amiss to a man in that distress of mind. So I pitched to sing that grand old tune, 'Partners of a glorious hope,' ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... in his face. He did not know whether he dared to laugh or not, and was too much afraid to try. The girl was aware of his embarrassment and became shy in her turn. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... man somewhat shy of speaking of himself, even before those who knew him best, and whom he loved the most; but at last it burst forth from him, and with a somewhat jerking eloquence he declared that he could not, would not, bear this misery ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... know," she said, "what it is. It seems as though I'd been here before. It looks so familiar to me—so good—" She went closer to where, still holding out the rain-coat, he stood on the other side of a table strewn with papers. She leaned on this, fingering a pen and looking at him with a shy eagerness. She was struggling, as so often, with an indefinable feeling which she had no words to express. "Don't you know," she went on, "every once in a while you see somebody—an old man or woman, perhaps, on the street cars, in the street—and somehow the ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... shy look into the beaming, inquisitive face. "I don't know," she confessed, soberly. "I have not even seen him for such a long time; but—but, I guess, he is more to me than any ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... Oh, I dare say I'm a fool for my pains, Ma. Nothing'll come of it. [Rising and pacing the room again.] Farncombe's as shy as a school-girl; he'd be on a desert island with a pretty woman for a month without squeezing ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... clergyman from Doughty Street, who suddenly found himself a member of the most brilliant circle ever gathered under an English roof. In old age he used to declare, to the amusement of his friends, that as a young man he had been shy, but had wrestled with the temptation and overcome it. As regards the master[25] of Holland House, it was not easy to be shy in the presence of "that frank politeness which at once relieved all the embarrassment ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... learning taught; in speech Right gentle, yet so wise; princely of mien, Yet softly mannered; modest, deferent, And tender-hearted, though of fearless blood: No bolder horseman in the youthful band E'er rode in gay chase of the shy gazelles; No keener driver of the chariot In mimic contest scoured the palace courts: Yet in mid-play the boy would oft-times pause, Letting the deer pass free; would oft-times yield His half-won race because the laboring steeds Fetched painful breath; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... queer story going about as to some diamonds. No one knows whom they belong to, and they say that Fawn has accused her of stealing them. He wants to get hold of them, and she won't give them up. I believe the lawyers are to have a shy at it. I'm sorry for Fawn. It'll do ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... fight shy of him, miss, you may remember this,—that you will fight shy of me at the ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... but apparently only had a dim understanding of it (among physiologists this condition, when the subject sees but does not understand, is called psychical blindness). After a little while, growing accustomed to his surroundings, Ryabovitch saw clearly and began to observe. As a shy man, unused to society, what struck him first was that in which he had always been deficient—namely, the extraordinary boldness of his new acquaintances. Von Rabbek, his wife, two elderly ladies, a young lady in a lilac dress, and the young man ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... in the laboratory, then went downstairs. Two other guests had meanwhile arrived, and were conversing with the hostess, Miss Moxey. The shy, awkward, hard-featured girl was grown into a woman whose face made such declaration of intellect and character that, after the first moment, one became indifferent to its lack of feminine beauty. As if with the idea of compensating for personal disadvantages, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... is as like the mother as possible in features. Her round face is quaintly framed in a close lace-trimmed cap. She is a shy little creature, and is rather afraid of the strange painter. So she keeps as far as possible in the shelter of her mother's big sleeve. The hour drags wearily by. The studio is a dull place, and the sunshine without ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... brief, contracted, terse, concise, condensed, sententious, laconic, succinct, summary, epigrammatic, pithy; limited, inadequate, insufficient, deficient, scanty; abrupt, curt, uncivil; lacking, shy, unsupplied; crisp, friable, brittle. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... these gentry assumed the character of a poor cripple, and stationed himself as a beggar, sweeping the crossing near the habitation of his shy cock, who, conceiving himself safe after three days voluntary imprisonment, was seized by the supposed Beggar, who threw away his broom ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... later, when Hairy Ben had started back up the river, the routine at the post was broken by the arrival of a small party of Kakisa Indians from the Kakisa or Swan River, a large unexplored stream off to the north-west. The Kakisas, an uncivilized and shy race, rarely appeared at Enterprise, and in order to get their trade Gaviller had formerly sent out a half-breed clerk to the Swan River every winter. But this man had lately died, and now the trade threatened to lapse for the lack of an interpreter. None of the ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... not rude, Miss Goff; but I find you very shy. You want to run away and hide from new faces and new surroundings." Alice, who was self-possessed and even overbearing in Wiltstoken society, felt that she was misunderstood, but did not know how to vindicate herself. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... power, of the Lianhan Shee, by, driving its victim out of the parish. The opinion of these persons was, in its distinct unvarnished reality, that Father Felix absolutely showed the white feather on this critical occasion—that he became shy, and begged leave to decline being introduced to this intractable pair—seeming to intimate that he did not at all relish adding them to ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... as he was esteemed by myself and others who knew him well, I will not say that he was a universal favourite. Men did not understand him: at that time of life (alas, why not always?) most of us are open and free-hearted; they did not relish his shy and reserved manner, his unwillingness to take the initiative in any social intercourse, his exigeance to a certain extent of those forms which the freedom of college friendship is apt to neglect. "Why didn't you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... master:(9) he was not cruel, thoughhe was reproached with being so, but—what perhaps was worse— he was cold and, in good as in evil, unimpassioned. In the tumult of battle he faced the enemy fearlessly; in civil life he was a shy man, whose cheek flushed on the slightest occasion; he spoke in public not without embarrassment, and generally was angular, stiff, and awkward in intercourse. With all his haughty obstinacy he was— as indeed persons ordinarily are, who make a display of their ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... old. Mother, who could generally be counted on for tenderness even when she failed to "understand," rather unfortunately centred on the wasp detail—why had Missy just stood there and let it keep stinging her? And Missy felt shy at trying to explain it was because the wasp was stinging her LEG. Mother would be sure to remark this sudden show of modesty in one she'd just been scolding for the lack of it—for riding the ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... she had leaned on his strength with a profound relief. It was hard to have Dan withdraw into his shell just as she was beginning to long for his presence; but he had withdrawn, and like most naturally shy and reticent people, withdrawn farther than ever, as if in reaction ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... woman in a very attractive linen gown was strolling toward us, quite prettily engaged with a book which she read as she walked, her fair young head bowed beneath a sunshade which tinted her face becomingly. She gave me a shy smile and a low-voiced greeting as we passed. Only my knowledge of the young woman prevented me from being ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... stars! O lovely stars! O lovely stars in the sky! Your eyes are bright, your eyes are bright, and yet you are wondrous shy! ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... lady, looking at the Lamb. She looked rather shy, but, as the boys put it, there didn't seem to be ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... ignorance of War Office organization — His lack of acquaintance with many matters in connection with the existing organization of the army — His indisposition to listen to advice on such subjects — Lord K. shy of strangers — His treatment of the Territorial Forces — Their weak point at the outset of hostilities, not having the necessary strength to mobilize at war establishment — Effect of this on the general plans ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... that at last poor wrangling Stephen, for want of play-fellows, had no other diversion left for him, but to take a solitary ramble through the fields. His parents being informed of the disagreeable situation into which he had brought himself, and what a shy reception he met with from all the boys in the neighbourhood, thought it adviseable, after giving him a strict caution to behave in a more peaceable manner for the future, to remove him to a genteel boarding school, at a distance from home. If he had thought proper to follow their advice, ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous

... Procter as I first saw her on one of my early visits to her father's house. She was a shy, bright girl, and the poet drew my attention to her as she sat reading in a corner of the library. Looking at the young maiden, intent on her book, I remembered that exquisite sonnet in her father's volume, bearing date November, 1825, addressed to the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... now severely feeling the cravings of hunger. During our journey we saw small herds of deer and antelopes, doubtless enticed to the water-courses by the recent rains, and towards night we descried a drove of mustangs upon a swell of the prairie half a mile ahead of us. They were all extremely shy, and although we discharged our rifles at them, not a shot was successful. In the evening we encamped near a water-hole, overspreading an area of some twenty acres, but very shallow. Large flocks of Spanish ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... the influential means which a government always has at its command, and of which its agents extend the ramifications from the centre to the extremities, but because the proposition was in accordance with the wishes of the majority. The Republicans were rather shy in avowing principles with which people were now disenchanted;—the partisans of a monarchy without distinction of family saw their hopes almost realised in the Consulate for life; the recollection of the Bourbons still lived in some ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... with one of his inimitable little apologetic smiles. It was some time before he replied. The mere memory of the adventure had suffused his shy face with blushes, and his brown eyes sought the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... manor-house, with its black oak panels and its wild stone-walled park along the river-side was, from year's end to year's end, innocent of all petticoats, save those of Cicely and old Miss Tring, the governess. Then, too, the boy was shy. No, there was nothing in his past, of not yet quite nineteen years, to go by. He was not of those youths who are always thinking of conquests. The very idea of conquest seemed to him vulgar, mean, horrid. There must be many signs indeed before it would come into his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... uneasy, and before long her uneasiness communicated itself to Finn, who immediately began to think of the worst things he knew of—men in leathern coats, iron-barred cages, and the like. All this made the Wolfhound more shy than ever where Bill was concerned, and more like a creature of the real wild in all his movements and general demeanour. He slept a little farther from the gunyah now, and relied almost entirely upon his own hunting for food. Still, he had no wish to leave the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... thought of a good many things in the course of some four or five minutes, I can tell you, and I got a lesson about time better than anything Kant and all the rest of them have to say of it. After I had been there about an ordinary lifetime, I saw a white canoe making toward me, and I knew that our shy young gentleman was coming to help me, and that we should become acquainted without an introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw what the trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet without drowning me in the process or upsetting his little flimsy craft, and, as I was somewhat tired with ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... set down at the end of the last paragraph drifted me somewhat from the regular thread of my narrative. This, perhaps, is not the only reason why I should stumble and shy along like a balky palfrey when I approach one of the trifling accidents which transpired immediately after our ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... Lois during the next week. Amanda had lived entirely alone for over twenty years; this admitting another to her own territory seemed as grave a matter to her as the admission of foreigners did to Japan. Indeed, all her kind were in a certain way foreigners to Amanda; and she was shy of them, she had so withdrawn herself by her solitary life, for solitariness is the farthest country ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... there a stone-quarry; and if they had strength and time to go far enough, they reached a waterfall, where the beck fell over some rocks into the "bottom." They seldom went downwards through the village. They were shy of meeting even familiar faces, and were scrupulous about entering the house of the very poorest uninvited. They were steady teachers at the Sunday-School, a habit which Charlotte kept up very faithfully, even after she was left alone; but they never faced their kind voluntary, and always preferred ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... in her prime; that is, between 36 and 55. She has what is called a well-bred air, dressing very carefully to produce that effect without the least regard for the latest fashions, sure of herself, very terrifying to the young and shy, fastidious to the ends of her long finger-tips, and tolerant and amused rather ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... tete-a-tete. We sent for our dinner, and paid share and share alike. He was at that time employed on his Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, which was his first work. When this was finished, the difficulty was to find a bookseller who would take it. The booksellers of Paris are shy of every author at his beginning, and metaphysics, not much then in vogue, were no very inviting subject. I spoke to Diderot of Condillac and his work, and I afterwards brought them acquainted with each other. They were worthy of each ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... more than a convenience; it was a comfort which rose almost to the height of a consolation. Probably the most universally desired comfort of the Confederate soldier was "something to eat." But this, like all greatly desired blessings, was shy, and when obtained was, to the average seeker, not replete ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... a hermitage are naturally shy and reserved; but for all that She did look towards me, though she quick withdrew Her stealthy glances when she met my gaze; She smiled upon me sweetly, but disguised With maiden grace the secret of her smiles. Coy love was ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... my porridge, I weary of my play; No longer can I sleep at night, No longer romp by day! Though forty pounds was once my weight, I'm shy of thirty now; I pine, I wither and I fade Through love ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... occasionally drop in of an evening, though they preferred taking her out to ride where they could see her away from her home. But the more respectable young men, with anxious mothers and sisters, were rather shy of poor Rose, and none seemed to care to go beyond a mild flirtation with a girl whose father was "on the rampage," as they expressed it, most of the time. On one occasion, when she had two young friends spending the evening, her father ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... customary composure, as a well-bred man, deserted him; he bowed confusedly; he had not a word to say. Mrs. Presty seized her opportunity, and introduced them to each other. "My daughter Mrs. Norman—Captain Bennydeck." Compassionating him under the impression that he was a shy man, Catherine tried to set him at his ease. "I am indeed glad to have an opportunity of thanking you," she said, inviting him by a gesture to be seated. "In this delightful air, I have recovered my health, and I ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... Beltane gazed upon her shy, sweet loveliness, what time her bosom rose and fell tempestuous, and she bowed ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... flowers, madam," said I. "I saw that you had forgotten them, and I took them as mementoes of you and your sweet children." She blushed and looked disconcerted. She was evidently unused to people, and shy with all but her children. However, she ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... his book, the angler will do well to have a store of very small trout-flies at hand, while experience has shown that even the dry fly will kill sea-trout on occasion, a thing that is worth remembering where rivers are low and fish shy. July, August and September are in general the best months for sea-trout, and as they are dry months the angler often has to put up with indifferent sport. The fish will, however, rise in tidal water and in a few localities even in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... snowed and froze, and looked dreary enough within the darkening walls of the fort. A French missionary had come down from the northern lake of Isle-a-la-Crosse, but, unlike his brethren, he appeared shy and uncommunicative. Two of the stories which he related, however, deserve record. One was a singular magnetic storm which took place at Isle-a-la-Crosse during the preceding winter. A party of Indians and half-breeds were crossing the lake on the ice when suddenly their ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... Wilhelmina's part with this view; but the notablest is still to mention: that of stirring up, by Voltaire's means, an important-looking Cardinal de Tencin to labor in the business. Eminency Tencin lives in Lyon, known to the Princess on her Italian Tour;—shy of asking Voltaire to dinner on that fine occasion,—but, except Officially, is not otherwise than well-affected to Voltaire. Was once Chief Minister of France, and would fain again be; does not like these Bernis novelties and Austrian Alliances, had he now any power to overset ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... been objurgating straight ahead all this time, now weighed anchor and put the boat in towards shore. Silence fell upon the company. They seemed very shy of each other, and did not amalgamate at all. Mr. P. went out to the extreme end of the bowsprit and gazed down into the deep blue sea, wondering whether its color was really due to excess of salt, or the presence of cuprate of ammonia. HORACE climbed to the top ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various

... about. He sat up quickly and found his Mother standing by his bed and Nanny putting things into a travelling bag. He felt as if his Mother looked taller than she had looked yesterday—and almost thin—and her face was anxious and—shy. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... funny, on one side, and on the other it isn't. There's a good deal to support their attitude. Phil's needs are those of a girl ready to meet the world, and she will need money. And I've noticed that money is a shy commodity; it doesn't just come ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... didn't speak; it was to set on fire the tongues of other speakers. There was a coloured print over the mantelpiece of Moses smiting the rock. What a solemn contrast to the streams of fire-water soon about to flow! John Gubbins sat at the top of the table, looking fat and anxious, half shy and half foolish; the man with the false hair and ornaments placed himself next to him. Three other strangers were present, a mixture of sham gentility and swagger, of whom it would be difficult to say which had descended into the lowest depths of blackguardism. And ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson

... most hospitably received, but the native wife, as is usually the case, was too shy to eat with us or even to appear at all. Our host is a superb young man, very frank and prepossessing looking, a thorough mountaineer, most expert with the lasso and in hunting wild cattle. The "station" consists of a wool shed, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... stenches, and swarming with half-naked children and whole worlds of dirty people—make up, altogether, such a scene of wonder: so lively, and yet so dead: so noisy, and yet so quiet: so obtrusive, and yet so shy and lowering: so wide awake, and yet so fast asleep: that it is a sort of intoxication to a stranger to walk on, and on, and on, and look about him. A bewildering phantasmagoria, with all the inconsistency of a dream, and all the pain and all the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... he began to study his "Portion," for on the first Sabbath of his thirteenth year he would be summoned, as a man, to the recitation of the Sacred Scroll, only instead of listening, he would have to intone a section from the parchment manuscript, bare of vowels and musical signs. The boy was shy, and the thought of appearing brazenly on the platform before the whole congregation was terrifying. Besides, he might make mistakes in the words or the tunes. It was an anxious time, scarcely redeemed by the thought of new clothes, "Son-of-the-Commandment" presents, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... words Zac turned towards the maid; she looked up at him with a shy glance and showed such a pretty face, such black eyes and smiling lips, that Zac for a moment hesitated, feeling quite paralyzed by an overflow of bashfulness. But it was not a time to stand on ceremony; and so honest Zac, without more ado, seized the girl in his arms, and bore ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... best by her, too, Aunt Emily. I rather shy at perfect types; girls, at the best, make me skittish. They make me think of myself and then I ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... town solely for his pleasure, although he was not disposed to shy from any diversion that offered. He had business in hand, business of prime importance since it involved spending a little matter of twelve thousand dollars. In brief, he had to replace the Blackbird, and he was replacing her with a carrier of double the capacity, of greater ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... get up the trap at two minutes' notice, and provided he has patience, and can wait for his little bird, he is almost sure to be rewarded for his pains,—if he wait long enough. This of course depends upon circumstances: when the birds are plenty and are not shy, it is a common thing to secure three or four at once in a very few minutes, while at other times an hour's ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... my dear Sophia," she answered in a shy tremulous way, clinging a little closer to Mr. Granger's arm. It was at Mill Cottage that this conversation took place, a few days before the wedding. "There can scarcely be a question of duty between people of the same age, like you and me. But I hope we shall ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... much of her now since you've come to your head, I reckon she'll be passin' you over to me to look after. She's shy that way. Yes, sir, any time I git bit up by man or beast, or shot up or knifed, I'll take Rabbit ahead of any doctor you can find. Them Indians they know the secrets of it. I wouldn't be afraid to stand and let a rattlesnake bite ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... arguing over our first principles. If a man persists in talking of what he does not understand, he is put down; if he sports loose views on morals at a decent dinner party, the better sort of people fight shy of him, and he is not invited again; if he profess himself a Buddhist or a Mahometan, it is assumed that he has not adopted those beliefs on serious conviction, but rather in wilful levity and eccentricity ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... person puts his emotion into the grotesque repetitions of a liturgy." I thought to myself that I had made a discovery, and that all was vanity. Well, we thanked the singer gravely enough, and went on, smiling and grimacing, to talk local gossip. A few minutes later, a young girl, very shy and painfully ingenuous, was hauled protesting to the piano. I could see her hands tremble as she arranged her music, and the first chords she struck were halting and timid. Then she began to sing—it was some simple old-fashioned song—what ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the little work of thirty-two pages, he turned back and read parts all over again, a terrific compliment to the shy and retiring author. He closed the book with a long sigh, sat upon his bed for half an hour and then went back to the pine table, took out from the debris of one of the drawers a bottle of ink, a pen and some notepaper and wrote laboriously and carefully, ending the seven or ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace

... and it was the only one that was fired, for Sinclair's horse was gun-shy indeed. At the explosion he pitched straight into the air with a squeal of mustang fright and came down bucking. The others forgot to look for the results of Lowrie's shot. They reined their horses away from the pitching broncho disgustedly. ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... increasing numbers and incessant excited chirping and chattering at first served to amuse, but in the end began to irritate me. I observed, too, that the alarm was spreading, and that larger birds, usually shy of men—pigeons, jays, and magpies, I fancied they were—now began to make their appearance. Could it be, thought I with some concern, that I had wandered into some uninhabited wilderness, to cause so great a commotion among ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... to be a strong man, but his body was a mass of tireless sinew. His eyes were of that cold, hard blue which is the color of fortitude, his face clean shaven and rather thin; his jaw slightly underhung, his lips narrow and tightly compressed. In demeanor he was quiet and almost shy, but it was the quietness of one who has spent his days in the open, and the shyness of a life which has dealt with simple things in a simple but efficient way. The longer Clark looked at him the more he liked this new discovery. Presently he ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... becomes a drop of water on the warm lips of a child, was the stony form of Inge changed, and as a little bird she soared, with the speed of lightning, upward to the world of mortals. A bird that felt timid and shy to all things around it, that seemed to shrink with shame from meeting any living creature, and hurriedly sought to conceal itself in a dark corner of an old ruined wall; there it sat cowering and unable to utter a sound, for it was voiceless. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... care, CURCUMA cold and shy Meets her fond husband with averted eye: Four beardless youths the obdurate beauty move With soft ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home. He waited on her again as soon as he had changed his dress; and after a second long and gracious conference, was freely visited by all the lords, ladies, and gentlemen at court, excepting the secretary and his party, who appeared somewhat shy of him. But all these fair appearances quickly vanished. On revisiting the queen in the evening, he found her much changed towards him; she began to call him to account for his unauthorised return and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... so. Dr Tempest himself was a man peculiarly capable of exercising the functions of a judge in such a matter, had he sat alone as a judge; but he was one who would be almost sure to differ from others who sat as equal assessors with him. Mr Oriel was a gentleman at all points; but he was very shy, very reticent, and altogether uninstructed in the ordinary daily intercourse of man with man. Any one knowing him might have predicted of him that he would be sure on such an occasion as this to be found floundering in a sea of doubts. Mr Quiverful was the father of a large ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... had a blue print frock, and a little round face. She had pretty shy eyes that looked out from beneath a shock of curly hair. The little King was very pretty too. And he liked to play with dolls, which I always think is a nice trait of character in ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various

... trip was marred by the black sorrow that fell upon him when informed of his illegitimate birth. "I was mad from the time I was told of my birth," he wrote, and until madness supervened he suffered from a "wounded imagination." He was morbid, shy, and irritable, and his energy—the explosive energy of this frail youth was amazing; because he had been refused the use of a ship boat he wasted three months digging out a canoe from a log of wood. Like Paul Gauguin, he saw many countries, and his eyes were trained to form, though not ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... dazzling. She seemed to him taller, and freer in all her movements. She had now a way of taking a deep breath when she was interested, that made her seem very strong, somehow, and brought her at one quite overpoweringly. If he seemed shy, it was not that he was intimidated by her worldly clothes, but that her greater positiveness, her whole augmented self, made him feel that his accustomed ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... unfrequently traveled road, I met a little boy and girl, walking towards me, hand in hand. They were crying. When they saw me, they wiped their eyes and stopped. I saw they were poorly clad, and, somewhat dirty. I became interested in them, but they were so shy that it was with difficulty I got them to remain. They looked at the coppers I held out, but they did not move until I placed a silver piece beside them. Their eyes rounded out, then, and the little girl became ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... something about him," she said. "Is he shy before strangers? I heard you whispering with him on the other side of the door. Are you jealous, Anne? Are you afraid I shall fascinate him ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... their footsteps had died away and then went very slowly down the first flight, fastening her belt. She stopped at the landing window, tucking the frayed end of the petersham under the frame of the buckle... they were all downstairs, liking her. She could not face them. She was too excited and too shy. ... She had never once thought of their "feeling" her going away... saying goodbye to each one... all minding and sorry—even the servants. She glanced fearfully out into the garden, seeing nothing. Someone called up from ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... just a case of "penny in the slot." You should reflect that no evasive bird Is half so shy as is your fittest word; And even similes, however wrought, Like hares, before you cook them, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... her own idea held her. Her own idea was, by insisting on the fact of the girl's prominence as a feature of the season's end, to keep Densher in relation, for the rest of them, both to present and to past. "It's everything that has happened since that makes you naturally a little shy about her. You don't know what has happened since, but we do; we've seen it and followed it; we've a little been of it." The great thing for him, at this, as Kate gave it, was in fact quite irresistibly that the case was a real one—the kind of thing that, when one's patience was shorter ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... but this thing has come a little between them. She has grown shy of going out, while he must be in the world; and all her life seems to vanish when he is away. Sometimes it makes my heart ache to think how much she ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... think we're babies? Here, shy us the reins. Come along, you fellows, there's room for all three on the box. Now then, Joe, give her her head. Come up, you beast! Swish! See if we don't make her ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... exemplified by the one now visited. But even unkempt and uncared for, what a picture it made! It was the realisation of a poetic death—the victim smothered by roses beside the singing waters of a brook. It was a long time before any one came, and the two visitors sat in the verandah feeling rather shy and uncomfortable, for this was the neighbour's first visit, and the native, who had ushered them in, vanished, sending weird cries around the tangled garden paths as though to summon his ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser

... The hippopotamus, with his shy and secluded habits, may be easily passed as he lies concealed among the reeds which grow by the side of the river, but if once he gets into the water, he is always to be detected by the blowing ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... occupy the brain, Vague prophecies which fill the ear, Dim perturbation, precious pain, A gleam of hope, a chill of fear,— These vex the poet's spirit. Moral:— Have a shy at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various

... niece was with her, and Meynell, while talking to the aunt either of his people or of the progress of the heresy campaign, was always keenly aware of the girlish figure beside her—of the quick, shy smile—the voice ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... burgesses of Oxford, who have assembled in your thousands to hear—" Bunny began once more, but the rude man shouted that he was not at a concert, and when he wanted to listen to the same thing over and over again he was not too shy to ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... young lady's mind that Christie's constant study of her little Bible had something to do with her being so different from any one she had ever known before. But both of them were a little shy about speaking of these things. They talked about the histories, and even about the doctrines, of the Bible. The stories that little Claude so delighted in all came from the Bible; and Christie had no shyness in speaking to him. To these stories, and the simple ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... of Mr. Charles Fox, of whose abilities he thought highly, but observed, that he did not talk much at our CLUB. I have heard Mr. Gibbon remark, 'that Mr. Fox could not be afraid of Dr. Johnson; yet he certainly was very shy of saying any thing in Dr. Johnson's presence[775].' Mr. Scott now quoted what was said of Alcibiades by a Greek poet[776], ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... to face me: be women no more; But fellow-men born, from top branch to the core; Men who must fight—who can kill, who can die, While women once more shall be covered and shy. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the Old Pasture just as jolly, round, red Mr. Sun had crept out of bed, and he had fully made up his mind that he would be back in the Green Forest before Mr. Sun had climbed very far up in the blue, blue sky. You see, big as he is and strong as he is, Buster Bear is very shy and bashful, and he has no desire to meet Farmer Brown, or Farmer Brown's boy, or any other of those two-legged creatures called men. It seems funny but he actually is afraid of them. And he had a feeling that he was a great ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess

... whatever it cost her, Rosalie determined she would go. But she grew more and more shy as she drew nearer the village, and walked far more slowly than she had done when ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... well says of her, "Her sense, energy, lightness, and quickness of action; her thorough knowledge of the work, her amazing yet simple resources, her shy humility which made her regard her own work with impatience, almost with contempt—all this and much else make her memory a source of strength and tenderness which nothing can take away." Elsewhere, the same writer adds, "Strength ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... Elijah Clifford actually blushed. But he did, and Miss Gray sat near enough to note it. If Elijah Clifford had not been so embarrassed by the New York man's question he might possibly, if he had been looking in Miss Gray's direction, have seen a new look on her face. A look of shy Admiration that belongs to the border land of another county called Affection, which is a near by state to another called Love. But ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... became conscious that there was something about her different from her mates. And what worried Matthew was that the difference impressed him as being something that should not exist. Anne had a brighter face, and bigger, starrier eyes, and more delicate features than the other; even shy, unobservant Matthew had learned to take note of these things; but the difference that disturbed him did not consist in any of these respects. Then in what ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Sachem's daughter, the Gentle Fawn; she, with a few young Indian girls, half hid among the whortleberry bushes growing luxuriantly around the smaller wigwams of the camp, were dividing their attention between the stately captives and weaving the gaudy wampums to be bestowed, with the shy little weavers themselves, upon such young braves as should be deemed worthy by the great council. Their stolen glances of admiration and pity, however, were intercepted by the young brave who brought home and so suspiciously guarded the prisoners. He was ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah

... not enough. But nobody minded. Nobody listened. Nobody took any notice of Mrs. Wilkins. She was the kind of person who is not noticed at parties. Her clothes, infested by thrift, made her practically invisible; her face was non-arresting; her conversation was reluctant; she was shy. And if one's clothes and face and conversation are all negligible, thought Mrs. Wilkins, who recognized her disabilities, what, at parties, ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... changes his colour; He can look like a tree or a wall; He is timid and shy and he hates to be seen, So he simply sits down in the grass and goes green, And pretends he is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various

... several Huxleys—the artificer in words, the amateur of garbage, pierrot lunaire, the cynic in rag-time, the fastidious sensualist. For my part, I believe only in the last, taking that to be the real Huxley and the rest prank, virtuosity, and, most of all, self-consciousness. As the foal will shy at his own shadow, so Aldous Huxley, nervous by fits at the poise of his own reality, sidesteps with graceful violence into the opposite of himself. There is a beautiful example of this in Mortal Coils. Among the stage-directions to his play, 'Permutations Among the Nightingales,' ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... you, Horace," she murmured, lifting bright, shy eyes. "And I love my beautiful mother, too, ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... shy, and unbelieving, the poets tell us. Had Sheldon's love met no response, then Hardin's revenge had been in part gratified; but now it was only whetted to a keener edge, for he saw, or fancied he saw, not only his rival's happiness, but the sister of the woman he ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... shy of revisiting the places where I have experienced the keenest delight. For example, I have no desire to revisit that small ancient town among the hills, described in the last chapter; to go on a ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... to go there. I don't belong there any more than you do here. Better drift back to Tucson, stranger. The parada is no place for a tenderfoot. You're in luck you're not shy one li'l' girl tromped to death. Take a fool's advice and hit the trail for town pronto before you bump into ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... so moved by your work that I at once felt one thing distinctly, viz., that in something so encouraging and deeply touching I could not myself collaborate. I felt as shy and bashful as possible when I thought of writing with my own hand the praise which you dictated to me in your extremely brilliant article. I hesitated and wavered, and did not know how to begin. Then my young friend Ritter came to my ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... gone. You did not intend it to go, you did not set yourself to banish it, you simply opened the door to the flocking in of the whole crowd of the world's cares and occupations, and away went the shy, solitary thought that, if it had been cared for and tended, might have led you at last to the Cross of Jesus Christ. Do not allow yourselves to be drifted, by the rushing current of earthly cares, from the impressions that are made upon your consciences and from the duty ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... one had told Paul this was going to happen to him, this experience, he would have laughed them to scorn. To begin with, he was rather shy with ladies as a rule, and had not learnt a trick of entreprenance. It took him quite a while to know one well enough to even talk at ease. And yet here he was, embarked upon an adventure which savoured ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... to see that, however painted and shaped, she was made of very common clay, and would never be able to take her place amongst the porcelain maidens to whom Gabriel was accustomed. Still she seemed modest and shy as a maid should be, and Dr Pendle looked ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... it would be quite wise, if I may venture to express an opinion," said Miss Acton, who was a timid soul, and always inclined to shy at her own ideas. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He'd had ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... the bear and the sultan; and addressing the latter, he said: 'Your sublime highness will hear him presently; be pleased to give him a little time. Let him not be harshly judged, if he is a little timid and shy. This is his first attempt ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... in procedure that our legislation is least efficient. Having little knowledge of the subject, legislatures have been shy of meddling with court rules and processes; while the very fact that the legislatures have taken unto themselves the right so to interfere, has seemed to impress both bench and bar with a certain sense of irresponsibility. ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... up of Judson. My father did not make a step until he was sure of what the next one would be. That is why the supreme court never reversed his decisions. When at last he had perfected his plans, Tell Mapleson grew shy of pushing his claims. But Tell was a shrewd pettifogger, and his was a different calibre of mind from Judson's. It was not until my father was about to lay claim in his client's behalf to the valuable piece of land containing the big cottonwood and the haunted cabin, that ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... wished for the presence of his fellow-traveller, though at other times wont rather to avoid his society: for on this evening he was about to disclose a secret to him, and beg for his advice. The timid, shy Emilius found in every business and accident of life so many difficulties, such insurmountable hindrances, that it might seem to have been an ironical whim of his destiny which brought him and Roderick together, Roderick being in everything the reverse of ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... an please your Grace," said Dennet, who fortunately was not in the least shy, and was still too young for a maiden's shamefastness. "He is to be my betrothed. I would say, one of them is, but the other—he ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... get on well, after a good sleep on camp bed with air mattress; roused at eight by a letter from you. I went to bed at eleven. At Koeniggraetz I rode the big sandy thirteen hours in the saddle without feeding him He bore it very well, did not shy at shots nor at corpses, cropped standing grain and plum-leaves with zest at the most trying moments, and kept up an easy gait to the last, when I was more tired than the horse. My first bivouac for the night was on the street pavement of Horic, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... night to the dark camp of King Rhesus, who had no watch- fire and no guards. Then Diomede silently stabbed each sleeping man to the heart, and Ulysses seized the dead by the feet and threw them aside lest they should frighten the horses, which had never been in battle, and would shy if they were led over the bodies of dead men. Last of all Diomede killed King Rhesus, and Ulysses led forth his horses, beating them with his bow, for he had forgotten to take the whip from the chariot. Then Ulysses and Diomede leaped on the backs of the horses, as they ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang

... purchase, the West was flooded with wild-cat money, and specie was very scarce. The brig was sold by order of the Chancellor of Michigan, and specie demanded from the purchaser, a condition that made buyers shy. In 1842, Mr. Scott purchased the schooner John Grant, of 100 tons, and in the following three years added to his little fleet the schooner Panama, of 100 tons, and the brig Isabella, of over 300 tons, the latter being ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... undoubtedly by Donatello, and may have been added as an afterthought. Two stand on either side of the curved tympanum, clinging to each other as they look downwards, and afraid of falling over the steep precipice. Their attitude is shy and timid, as Leonardo said was advisable when making little children standing still.[150] Though unnecessary, their presence on the relief is justified by Donatello's skill and humour. In the great reliefs at Padua, Siena and Lille he ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... persuade her to lunch with us," said Mrs. Maynard, "but she would not do so. She was very shy and timid, and though very glad to have the ride, she was unwilling to let us do more for her. She had many errands to attend to, and she was sure of a ride home, so she said we need not worry ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... would think. Knox at least survived her; and we possess his epigraph to their long intimacy, given to the world by him in an appendix to his latest publication. I have said in a former paper that Knox was not shy of personal revelations in his published works. And the trick seems to have grown on him. To this last tract, a controversial onslaught on a Scottish Jesuit, he prefixed a prayer, not very pertinent to the matter in hand, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... beginning of Meigg's Wharf there was a house of entertainment that no doubt had a history and a mystery even in those young days. We never quite comprehended it: we were too young for that, and too shy and too well-bred to make curious or impertinent inquiry. We sometimes stood at the wide doorway—it was forever invitingly open, —and looked with awe and amazement at paintings richly framed and hung so close together that no bit ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... next few minutes I found that some of the shy mountain women were beginning to hover about me, and in another ten minutes I had laid the foundations of an export rug and quilt business that I have a feeling will ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Nehemoth passes on through the other Audience Chambers and receives, perhaps, some Sheikhs of the Arab folk who have crossed the great desert from the West, or receives an embassy sent to do him homage from the shy jungle people to the South. And all the while the slaves with the ringing palanquin run westwards, following the sun, and ever the sun shines straight into the chamber where Nehemoth sits, and all the while the music from one or other of his bands of musicians comes tinkling to his ears. But ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... walked up to the town, he felt shy and afraid of being seen, and took the back streets—why, he didn't know, but he followed his instinct. At the School-gates he made a dead pause; there was not a soul in the quadrangle—all was lonely, and silent, and sad. So with another effort he strode through ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... ordered me to get out the carriage and fetch two new visitors from the station. It was in the middle of the afternoon; apparently he had just got up. But he put me in an awkward position here—why had he not gone to Nils? It struck me that he was perhaps, after all, a little shy of Nils with ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... French students of sociology, Professor Letourneau has long stood in the first rank. He approaches the great study of man free from bias and shy of generalisations. To collect, scrutinise, and appraise facts is his ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... letters for him since one of the clerks has been ill. My father says she can cook like a Frenchwoman, and that is something. As for Joost, it is surely of little importance to him, he is too quiet to say anything to her; she talks little; she must be shy." ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... full of delicate subtleties and dreamy glimpses of shy humane wisdom. The manner in which outward things—the mere background and scenery of the play—are used to deepen and enhance the dramatic interest is a thing peculiarly characteristic of this author. Tchekoff has that kind of imaginative sensibility which makes every material ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... in the sassafras all out of sight The Blackbird is splitting his slender bill For the ease of his heart: Do you think if he said "I will sing like this bird with the mud colored back And the two little spots of gold over his eyes, Or like to this shy little creature that flies So low to the ground, with the amethyst rings About her small throat—all alive when she sings With a glitter of shivering green—for the rest, Gray shading to gray, with the sheen of her breast Half rose and half fawn— Or like this one so proud, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous

... I left unattempted or said, That might soften the Heart of this pitiless Maid; But still she was shy, And would blushing deny, Whilst her willinger Eyes gave her ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... could settle a score of quarrels with such besotted creatures as the four he had put to rout so lately, and be no manner the worse for it himself. He was not at all sorry for the adventure. He felt a flutter of pride and pleasure in the shy glances shot at him from the dark eyes beneath the crimson hood. He had made of himself a hero in the eyes of pretty Rosamund, and he liked that experience ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Is dawn a secret shy and cold Anadyomene, silver-gold? And sunset still a golden sea From Haslingfield to Madingley? And after, ere the night is born, Do hares come out about the corn? Oh, is the water sweet and cool Gentle and brown, above the pool? And laughs the immortal river still Under the mill, under ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... and woody steeps, thy lake, Its one green island, and its winding shores, The multitude of little rocky hills, Thy church, and cottages of mountain-stone Clustered like stars some few, but single most, 40 And lurking dimly in their shy retreats, Or glancing at each other cheerful looks, Like separated stars with ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... being gun-shy. And Uncle Eddy ate some, too, one time when he was little, because the colored stable boy told him it would make ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... least prepossessing of all the inhabitants of Aden, and it will be long before any confidence can be placed in them. They religiously conceal their women, and are a bigoted, prejudiced race, disaffected of course to the new government, and shy of ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... Mm and Copper slipped quietly into the office. She looked at him curiously, a faint half-shy smile ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... think he is a little," Cassandra replied. "Queer, but very fascinating. I shall read Milton to-night. It's been one of the happiest nights of my life, Katharine," she added, looking with shy devotion at her cousin's ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... the river: then strike gently, and hold your rod at a bent, a little while; but if you both pull together, you are sure to lose your game, for either your line, or hook, or hold, will break: and after you have overcome them, they will make noble sport, and are very shy to be landed. The Carp is far stronger and ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... fellow, better and better as we see him more. Something shy and skittish in the man; but a brave heart intrinsically, with sound, earnest sense, with plenty of insight and even humor. He confirms an observation of mine, which indeed I find is hundreds of years old, that a stammering man is never a worthless one. Physiology can tell you why. It is an excess ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... of her cousins, who gazed at her with stolid eyes; she was tossed to them like a package, with no intermediate state between the wretched chamber at Saint-Jacques and the dining-room of her cousins, which seemed to her a palace. She was shy and speechless. To all other eyes than those of the Rogrons the little Breton girl would have seemed enchanting as she stood there in her petticoat of coarse blue flannel, with a pink cambric apron, thick shoes, blue stockings, and a white kerchief, her hands being covered by red worsted mittens ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac

... Shy sylvan spirit singing so sweetly, Dancing to measures that flow with your song Frolic your fairy feet faultlessly, fleetly, As down the mountain vale ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... this council and the departure of the army, we saw Yolanda at Castleman's. She was always waiting when we arrived. She had changed in many respects, but especially in her attitude regarding Max. She was kind and gentle, but shy. Having dropped her familiar manner, she did not go near him, but sat at a distance, holding Twonette's hand, and silently but constantly watching him, as if she were awaiting something. Her eyes, at times, seemed to be half-indignant interrogation points. At other ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... "Yes, and"—a shy smile playing around the corners of the girl's mouth—"a telegram received last night reads: 'Coming Thursday; sail March thirtieth; can you ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... and facing her across the table, with its low lights and flowers, he felt an extraordinary pleasure in seeing her again in evening dress, and in letting his eyes dwell on the proud shy set of her head, the way her dark hair clasped it, and the girlish thinness of her neck above the slight swell of the breast. His imagination was struck by the quality of reticence in her beauty. She suggested a fine portrait kept ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... knew just what to do, and just how to do it,—how to get into the salon when he arrived, and how to greet his hostess. But the rest knew how to follow suit, and did it, and, though some of them were a little shy at first, not one was confused, and in a few minutes they were all quite at their ease. By the time the brief formality of being received was over, and they were all gathered round the tea-table, the atmosphere had become comfortable and friendly, ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... sure you will find it gone and a present in its place in the morning. Perhaps you may even feel the same little soft tickle on your forehead that King Bubi did; but I do not promise for certain that you will see kind Mr. Mouse, because he is rather shy. ...
— Perez the Mouse • Luis Coloma

... go to the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company. He wanted to get the teasing, due him for staying away so short a time, over as soon as possible. The office girl, addressing circulars, seemed surprised when he stepped from the elevator, and blushed her usual shy gratitude to the men of the office for allowing her to exist and take away six ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... throat Burrows, and the speckled stoat; Where the quick sandpipers flit In and out the marl and grit That seems to breed them, brown as they: Naught disturbs its quiet way, Save some lazy stork that springs, Trailing it with legs and wings, Whom the shy fox from the hill Rouses, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy



Words linked to "Shy" :   start, wary, diffident, throw, jump, confident, shyness, deficient, colloquialism, startle, confidence, insufficient



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