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Shy   Listen
adjective
Shy  adj.  (compar. shyer; superl. shyest)  
1.
Easily frightened; timid; as, a shy bird. "The horses of the army... were no longer shy, but would come up to my very feet without starting."
2.
Reserved; coy; disinclined to familiar approach. "What makes you so shy, my good friend? There's nobody loves you better than I." "The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness."
3.
Cautious; wary; suspicious. "I am very shy of using corrosive liquors in the preparation of medicines." "Princes are, by wisdom of state, somewhat shy of thier successors."
4.
Inadequately supplied; short; lacking; as, the team is shy two players.(Slang)
5.
(Poker), Owing money to the pot; in cases where an opponent's bet has exceeded a player's available stake or chips, but the player chooses to continue playing the hand before adding the required bet to the pot. (Slang)
To fight shy. See under Fight, v. i.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books



... naturally shy with women, as most big men seem to be, and the masterful Lou-Jane smote him with utter confusion. She prattled on about the tea, about the church, the Rev. Dr. Jebb, the local people, the farm, national politics, dry-farming, horses, cows and ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... general, are not only rare as to the different species, but very scarce as to numbers; and these few are so shy, that, in all probability, they are continually harassed by the natives, perhaps to eat them as food, certainly to get possession of their feathers, which they use as ornaments. Those which frequent the woods, are crows and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... effort afterwards. What real man ever liked kissing a girl who didn't want to be kissed? Love has got to be mutual. Your lover is frequently more interested in being loved than in loving. And the trump cards are always the woman's. These grown-up boys of ours are shy and self-depreciatory in love, and they run like deer when they think they are not wanted. So the woman has to play a double game, and gets blamed for guile when it is only wisdom. Her instinct is to run, partly because she is afraid of love and partly because ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... him which had been furnished us from a trustworthy source. He was said to be undersized, red-haired, and somewhat freckled. He was the only man in the party whose outside tallied with this bill of particulars. He was said to be very shy. He is a shy man. Of this there is no doubt. It may not show on the surface, but the shyness is there. After days of intimacy one wonders to see that it is still in about as strong force as ever. There is a fine and beautiful nature ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... for a dish of good sociable converse. By degrees, however, they thawed a little. Mr Gwynne wished to say something that would set his young chess opponent at his ease, and said the very thing likely the most to confuse a shy man. He made a personal remark and ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... argue, but placed his strong hands on either side of her slender waist and lifted her lightly to the homemade table, while she gasped and again the wonderful smile, more shy this time, transformed her tear-stained face. In silence, and with flying, experienced fingers, the physician applied a soothing salve to the blotchy red, fast-swelling burn on the ankle, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... this north country lies in its mail service. Uncle Sam institutes rural deliveries, so the bolomen can register poisoned arrowheads to the Igorrotes in exchange for recipes to make roulade of naval officer, but his American miners in Alaska go shy on home news for eight months ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... agreed Bob, "but she was the quietest known girl for miles round those parts, very shy and quiet." ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... depends on many factors,—age, size, thriftiness, care it has received, whether it has escaped frost and other injuries; and some varieties are much more prolific than others. Some apples are "shy bearers," and for this reason soon are lost to propagation unless they have some superlative merit; Yellow Bellflower is an example of a shy, or at least an irregular, bearer. The great commercial ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey

... where all things seemed drowsy—where the only spectators were the mellowing apples that reddened the boughs above her, and her sole auditors the brown partridges that nestled in the tall grass, and the shy cicadae ambushed under the clover leaves—her pent-up pain and disappointment bubbled over in a gush ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... the bell, and desired Pierre to request Miss Van Cortlandt to join him in the library. Grace entered blushing and shy, but with a countenance beaming with inward peace. Her uncle regarded her a moment intently, and a tear glistened in his eye, again, as he tenderly ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... and as near as I could to acquaint myself with what the island produced. The first time I went out, I presently discovered that there were goats in the island, which was a great satisfaction to me; but then it was attended with this misfortune to me, viz., that they were so shy, so subtle, and so swift of foot that it was the difficultest thing in the world to come at them. But I was not discouraged at this, not doubting but I might now and then shoot one, as it soon happened; for ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... much over at Meander, at the railroad's end, to cheer a soldier's heart. It was an inspiring ride, in these autumn days, to come to Meander, past the little brimming lakes, which seemed to lie without banks in the green meadows where wild elk fed with the shy Indian cattle; over the white hills where the earth gave under the hoofs like new-fallen snow. But when one came to it through the expanding, dusty miles, the reward of his long ride was not in keeping ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... like a geranium and smiles shy, like he always does when he's kidded. "If you please, sir," says he, "it's only a lady; to ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... how the emperor's face had flushed again during this last vehement speech, and at the same time the pain had again contracted his forehead and eyes. And she obeyed his command, but this time only in shy submission. When she found that he became quieter, and the movement of her hand once more did him good, she recovered her presence of mind. She remembered how often the quiet application of her hand had helped ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... was the passing by Andrew the carpenter's pretty garden on her way there. She always paused and looked over the low hedge, hoping that she might catch sight of the carpenter; for she had her mother's message to deliver, and never ceased hoping to find the opportunity. She was far too shy to go into the house for that purpose. She felt that she did not know Andrew well enough to venture to do that. She was particularly timid with him, because he was so very quiet, and always looked at her kindly when they met, but never spoke; or, at least, never said more than a kindly ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... what I mean, And how he easily may get between Those Quarters, where he may surprize a Fort, In which an Emperor may find such Sport, That with a mighty Gust of Love's Alarms, He'd lie dissolving in my circling Arms; But 'tis my Fate to have to do with Fools, Who're very loth and shy to use their Tools, To ease a poor, and fond distressed Maid, Of that same Load, of which I'm not afrad To lose with any Man, tho' I should die, For any Tooth (good ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various

... two men in those days, receiving regularly the poet's sunny recognition and the statesman's rather unsympathetic stare. Both men were overwhelmingly famous, but, touched simultaneously by warmth and frost, I, a shy youngster, could keep my balance in their presence. Sumner in those years was the especial bete noire of the South and the conservative North, and the idol of the radicals—at once the most banned and the most blessed of men. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... a little coupe—a smart young creature with a nice blue coat, fond of town, I should say, but quite at home in the country. She also is inspecting two bloaters. But these two are very shy. In fact they are not really bloaters at all; they are rather a pair of nice-mannered fresh herrings, not long mated. The male had something to do with that war, I should think; the coupe would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various

... had tried to keep the children at school, would come that way, and with a shy smile, talk very wisely about whether or not the new miners would "strike it" under the cool oak among the flowers on the hill. But Jim never stopped to talk much. He dug and wrestled away, day after day, now up to his waist ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... this kind of thing, and the correct way would have been to come in on a Pullman instead of a cattle-car, and then engage a suite of rooms at the biggest hotel. Financiers and company jobbers seem rather shy of a man who gives Lemoine's boarding-house as his address, and some of them are not quite civil when they hear what he has to say to them. In fact, I'm afraid that I shall have to give them up in ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... affairs, who must perforce turn to the newspaper for information and to the open street for expression, who relieve themselves of uncomplex emotions by shouting, and who symbolize the things they hate to the depth of their souls with personalities like Giolitti and occasionally shy bricks at the guarded home of authority. All this, yes, but not "riff-raff," not anarchist, nor mafia, nor apache. Nothing of that did I ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... 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 ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... 737. coy: shy or reserved. cozened: cheated, beguiled. The origin of this word is interesting: a cozener is one who, for selfish ends, claims kindred or cousinship with another, and hence a ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... She was no longer a pretty girl, a nice girl, as the commendation went. Her face had gained an exalted lift; she was beautiful. She took Miss Dorcas by the arms, and laughed the laugh that knows itself in the right, and so will not be shy. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... instead of the fine face and distinguished presence of Mr. Bassett Oliver, he found himself confronting a young man who looked like a well-set-up subaltern, or a cricket-and-football loving undergraduate; a somewhat shy, rather nervous young man, scrupulously groomed, and neatly attired in tweeds, who, at sight of the two men on the pavement, ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher

... from the charm of Eve Sylvester, which was that of a violet or a child, perpetually perfuming the air. It could be traced at last—for she had not a good feature—to the possession of a pair of very soft, and shy, brown eyes, and of a voice, simply agreeable in conversation, which burgeoned out in song into the richest contralto imaginable, causing her to be known widely in society as "the Miss Masters who sings." Indeed, she had a wonderful musical talent, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... ushered by a servant, stalked forward, booted and fully equipped, my travelling companion—if such a word can at all express the relation between the arrogant young blood, just fresh from assuming the toga virilis, and a modest child of profound sensibilities, but shy and reserved beyond even English reserve. The aged servant, with apparently constrained civility, presented my mother's compliments to him, with a request that he would take breakfast. This he hastily and rather ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... made a dinner of the hard, black bread of the country, rendered palatable by the addition of mountain cheese and some chips of an antique Bologna sausage. We were much amused in conversing with the simple hosts and their shy, gipsy-like children, one of whom, a dark-eyed, curly-haired boy, bore the name of Raphael. We also became acquainted with a shoemaker and his family, who owned a little olive orchard and vineyard, which they said produced enough to support them. Wishing to know ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... who, in a manner of speaking, had come from England. Fourteen hundred years have passed since the Briton ancestors of Roche crossed in their shallow boats. Yet he was as hopelessly un-French as a Welshman of the hills is to this day un-English. His dark face, shy as a wild animal's, his peat-brown eyes, and the rare, strangely-sweet smile which once in a way strayed up into them; his creased brown hands always trying to tie an imaginary cord; the tobacco ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... legs got tired going up to the lantern, and that my arms gave out polishing the lenses. I also confided to it that I would not mind these little trifles if I only had one being to share my solitude—a modest, shy little creature that I wouldn't be afraid to ask to be ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... A sacred and inviolable intimacy is formed between them. The boy opens all his heart to his mother, telling her everything; and she, happy woman, knows how to be a boy's mother and to keep a mother's place without ever startling or checking the shy confidences, or causing him to desire to hide anything from her. The boy whispers his inmost thoughts to his mother, and listens to her wise and gentle counsels with loving eagerness ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... these two periods, but chiefly at the 7.45 end, most of the rising in the house was accomplished. Master Simson, the Shell-fish, was in for the hundred yards under fourteen at the sports; and being a shy youth who did not like to practise in public, he had determined to rise before the lark and take a furtive spin round the school track while his schoolfellows and enemies slept. It was a cold, raw morning, and before he was fully arrayed ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... knew I was plain and shy, and made friends slowly. So I chose such pleasures as should be under my own control, and could never fail me. They make my life so much happier and more precious than it was ten years ago, that I feel certain ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... She was shy, yet eager to talk, and told me that she had good spoken Irish, and was learning to read it in the school, and that she had been twice to Galway, though there are many grown women in the place who have never set a foot ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge

... usual of his past days in the Community. His mind went back again now to that bygone time. The clock on the mantelpiece struck nine. They were all at supper, at Tadmor—talking over the events of the day. He saw himself again at the long wooden table, with shy little Mellicent in the chair next to him, and his favourite dog at his feet waiting to be fed. Where was Mellicent now? It was a sad letter that she had written to him, with the strange fixed idea that he was to return to her one day. ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... "Well, I'm shy that gold fountain pen Aunt Martha gave me," announced Jack presently. "I'd forgotten about that because I didn't usually use it. I use the one mother ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer

... and git enough grass to keep him in shape. And them hobbles won't burn him. Any time you're shy of hobbles, that's ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... of the tavern; he kept his own room, and was held in distrust. Some said he was proud; some objected that he was sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of him, for that he was a poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts. The whole population were shy of him on these various counts of indictment, but especially the last, which involved a species of domestic treason; and he soon became so confirmed in his seclusion, that his only time for walking up and down was when the evening Club were assembled at their songs and toasts and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... Jackson, going on with his work. It was his plan not to seem too eager but to fight shy in order to get his price. Besides, though he would have been glad to close the bargain on the spot, there was an embarrassing difficulty. The farm was not his to sell, and he was anxiously awaiting Mrs. ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... maid steals through the shade Her shepherd's suit to hear; To Beauty shy, by lattice high, Sings high-born Cavalier. The star of Love, all stars above, Now reigns o'er earth and sky, And high and low the influence know— ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... 's nought but shy finesse, And mim and prim 'bout mess and dress, That scarce a hand a hand will press Wi' ought o' feeling free; A cauldrife pride aside has laid The hodden gray, and hame-spun plaid, And a' is changed since neebors said Just, How 's a' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... possessions had he remained more than six weeks under its spell to escape the horrors of an entanglement in the meshes of foul crime across the river. I see now how it must have affected him—this fireplace talk. Steam heat is the only thing to preserve a man's common sense, and if he be shy of that desirable faculty he should be extremely careful when listening or talking, even under the weak spell of a gilt radiator. It is a fact of science that certain rays of light exert a hypnotic influence ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... upwards towards the slope where the sheep had been seen on the previous day, Joses was full of stories about the shy nature ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... and Audubon confessed their comparative ignorance, neither ever having seen its nest or become acquainted with its haunts and general habits. Its song is quite striking and novel, though its voice at once suggests the class of Warblers, to which it belongs. It is very shy and wary, flying but a few feet at a time, and studiously concealing itself from your view. I discover but one pair here. The female has food in her beak, but carefully avoids betraying the locality of her nest. The Ground-Warblers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... see it in the sunshine; and it glows like a red flame in the dark. Thou wearest it openly; so there need be no question about that. But this minister! Let me tell thee, in thine ear! When the Black Man sees one of his own servants, signed and sealed, so shy of owning to the bond as is the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, he hath a way of ordering matters so that the mark shall be disclosed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world! What is it that the minister seeks to hide, with his ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... apprehensions. They all knew, I said, that I had no communication with any of my father's servants, except my sister's Betty Barnes: for although I had a good opinion of them all, and believed, if left to their own inclinations, that they would be glad to serve me; yet, finding by their shy behaviour, that they were under particular direction, I had forborn, ever since my Hannah had been so disgracefully dismissed, so much as to speak to any of them, for fear I should be the occasion of their losing their places too. They must, therefore, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... strange animals; sometimes they are so stupid and infatuated that a man may walk up to them in full sight on the open prairie and even shoot several of their number before the rest will think it necessary to retreat. Again at another moment they will be so shy and wary, that in order to approach them the utmost skill, experience, and judgment are necessary. Kit Carson, I believe, stands pre-eminent in running buffalo; in approaching, no man living can bear away the palm from ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... naive. She was impressed by his nearness; but Lane saw that it was the fact of his being a soldier with a record, not his mere physical propinquity that affected her. She seemed both bold and shy. But she did not show any modesty. Her short skirt came above her bare knees, and she did not try to hide them from Lane's sight. At fifteen, like his sister Lorna, this girl had the development of a young woman. She ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... its worst colours to every one that came to the house; but Natura having obtained forgiveness from his father, did not give himself much trouble as to the rest.—Delia seemed rejoiced to see him come down stairs again, but he looked shy upon her, and told her he could not have thought she would have been so unkind as not to have come to see him; but on her acquainting him with the reason of her absence, and protesting it was not her fault, he grew as fond of her as ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... at Liverpool last June. After two or three attempts I contrived to seize on the famous Nathaniel Hawthorne. Need I say that I like him very much? He is very sensible, very genial,—a little shy, I think (for an American!)—and altogether extremely agreeable. I wish that I could see more of him, but our orbits are wide apart. Now and then—once in two years—I diverge into and cross his circle, but at other times we are separated by a ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... the Wind I stood All by myself inside our wood, Where Nurse had told me I must wait While she went back through the white gate To fetch her work ... I don't know why, But suddenly I felt quite shy With all the trees when Nurse was gone, For quietness came on and on And covered me right round as though I was just nobody, you know, And not a little girl at all... But then—quite sudden—HER torn shawl Came through the trees; I saw it ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various

... old hunting squire to his daughter when they had passed. "Shy, no doubt—very natural! But nowadays girls, when they're shy, don't giggle and blush as they used to in my young days; they look as if you meant to insult them, and they weren't going to allow it! Oh, very handsome—very handsome—of course. But you can see she's advanced—peculiar—or ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... The statue 'gan a gracious conversation, And (waving to the foe a salutation) Sail'd with her wondering happy proteges Gayly adown the wide Borysthenes, Until they came unto some friendly nation. And when the heathen had at length grown shy of Their conquest, she one day came back again ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... departing paroxysms of mirth. "An' I only 'ope as you'll appreciate the hoppertunity of consortin' with a man o' my mug. Get steam up in that fire-box o' your'n. I'm goin' to unrig the dogs an' grub 'em. An' don't be shy o' the wood, my lad; there's plenty more where that come from, and it's you've got the time to sling an axe. An' tote up a bucket o' water while you're about it. Lively! or I'll run you down, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... unacademic stream? 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 the mill? ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... muttered I with a bow, and then, like a shy noodle as I was, I began moving away—and why? Simply because Mr. Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, and my instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden in Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... very easy punishment, and then began a vigorous scratching of pencils, with shy laughing glances between the culprits, while the teacher took a book and began to read, keeping, however, a sharp eye on the pupils to see that no one shirked her work. When one announced that her slate was full, she was told to sponge it off ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... 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 ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... have that form of it called national rivalry, which in good truth is nowadays the cause of all gunpowder and bayonet wars which civilized nations wage. For years past we English have been rather shy of them, except on those happy occasions when we could carry them on at no sort of risk to ourselves, when the killing was all on one side, or at all events when we hoped it would be. We have been shy ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris

... I, but it isn't always best to go at it bald-headed. However, never mind, Ned. I am now convinced that there would be little use in asking Mr. Darwood questions in any circumstances. The instant you begin to talk Alaska with that man he is going to shy off. He fears he might be trapped into an admission, or else he thinks we are trying to pump him for some other reason. You may be sure that others have tried to draw him out, believing they might obtain information that he ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin

... to clean up three thousand dollars clear profit in four months. I grabbed it, and I find it's some undertaking. I'm dealing with a hard business outfit, hard as nails. I might get the banks or some capitalist to finance me, because my timber holdings are worth money. But I'm shy of that. I've noticed that when a logger starts working on borrowed capital, he generally goes broke. The financiers generally devise some way to hook him. I prefer to sail as close to the wind as I can on what little I've got. I can get this timber out—but it wouldn't look nice, now, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... did you say," she answered, oh so softly! "or the changes?" And then she became suddenly shy, and withdrew her hand, which he was still holding; and he, drawing himself up to his full height, stood stock still for a moment as if lost in thought and ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... and out-guess any man I ever met. He has the instinct of a wild animal for finding his way and the coldest nerve I ever saw. His honesty and loyalty amount almost to fanaticism. But he is diffident and shy as a school girl and as sensitive as a bashful boy. I verily believe he knows more to-day about the great engineering projects in the West than nine-tenths of the school men but I've seen him sit for an hour absolutely dumb, half scared ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... stationary in my dreams; but great storms and driving mists cause him to fluctuate uncertainly, or even to retire altogether, like his gloomy counterpart the shy Phantom of the Brocken—and to assume new features or strange features, as in dreams always there is a power not contented with reproduction, but which absolutely creates or transforms. This dark being the reader will see again in a further stage of my opium experience; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... negative argument is worth six positive ones; that it never pays to knock your competitor; that it's wise to fight shy of that joker ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... aspect had one unforeseen result. When she presented herself at Wistaria Terrace the baby did not know her. Her stepmother shed a few tears, which were half-gratification. The elder children were already a bit shy of her, the baby's immediate predecessor even murmuring of her as "the yady," and surveying her from afar, finger in mouth. But the baby could in no way be brought to recognise her, and only shouted lustily when she tried to ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... had hitherto made him keep to himself; but now, when he saw her eyes beam gratitude, and her cheek flush, after her strong demonstration of regard, and heard her last words, so very like a hint to a shy man, it must be owned a sudden pang shot through poor Andy's heart, and he sickened at the thought of being married, which placed the tempting prize before him hopelessly ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... cram their jokes and anecdotes. Years after I met the same gentleman at another entertainer's table, where I found him in my presence not quite the livener-up they had expected, and he seemed a little shy of me; probably he thought me an omniscient, for I never told the poor man I had found him out. I fear he has departed to a world where genuine truthfulness is more accepted as a virtue than ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... kill a deer in another, it would be, 'where is the dog Priest?' says one. 'Who has seen the accursed Tuck?' says another. 'The unfrocked villain destroys more venison than half the country besides,' says one keeper; 'And is hunting after every shy doe in the country!' quoth a second.—In fine, good my Liege, I pray you to leave me as you found me; or, if in aught you desire to extend your benevolence to me, that I may be considered as the poor Clerk of Saint Dunstan's cell in Copmanhurst, to ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... 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 ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... wrong," answered Clarice, in the shy way which she was not one to lose quickly. "I fancied she ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... walking through a copse of young white birches,—their leaves scarce yet apparent,—over a ground delicate with wood-anemones, moist and mottled with dog's-tooth-violet leaves, and spangled with the delicate clusters of that shy creature, the Claytonia or Spring Beauty. All this was floored with last year's faded foliage, giving a singular bareness and whiteness to the foreground. Suddenly, as if entering a cavern, I stepped through the edge of all this, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... at the door, taking silence for consent, presented himself, and the women shuddered. This was the prowler that had been making inquiries about them for some time past. But they looked at him with frightened curiosity, much as shy children stare silently at a stranger; and ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac

... and the pretty passers-by had made him shy. He chose none of them for the excellent reason that he fled from all of them. He lived ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... delicate, pretty little woman, had suffered keenly and secretly from the jealous suspicions of her husband, until one day he invited the whole Bar to his house to expose her infidelity. On arriving, the party found the shy, petite creature quietly engaged in her household duties, and retired abashed and discomfited. But the sensitive woman did not easily recover from the shock of this extraordinary outrage. It was with difficulty ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... him? for rat me if it was not a meritorious action to strip such a sneaking, pitiful rascal; and instead of the two hundred guineas, I wish you had taken as many thousand. Come, come, my boy, don't be shy of confessing to me: you are not now brought before one of the pimps. D—n me if I don't honour you for it; for, as I hope for salvation, I would have made no manner of scruple of ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... going to do?" inquired Hazelton. "Are we going to remain afraid of the box and shy ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... rested. After a time someone said, "Well, let us go down to the river and camp." They all started down the hill, but I remained where I was, waiting to see what they would do. You see, I did not belong to the party, and I did not know how the others felt toward me; so I was shy about doing anything; I wanted to wait ...
— When Buffalo Ran • George Bird Grinnell

... Duffer as a beginner. My great prototypes, J.J. ROUSSEAU, and MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF, never own to having been Social Duffers. But I cannot conceal the fact from my own introspective analysis. It is not only that I was always shy. Others have fled, and hidden themselves in the laurels, or the hedgerows, when they met a lady in the way—but they grew out of this cowardly practice. Often have I, in a frantic attempt to conceal myself behind a hedge, been betrayed by my fishing-rod, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various

... his varnished boots and lilac gloves on Sunday. Toward the close of his college course, he became particularly attached to a poor bursar, by name Lescande, who excelled in mathematics, but who was very ungraceful, awkwardly shy and timid, with a painful sensitiveness to the peculiarities of his person. He was nicknamed "Wolfhead," from the refractory nature of his hair; but the elegant Camors stopped the scoffers by protecting the young man with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Members should take offence at any expressions in this or any future Preface of mine, as a few did at some words in the last I wrote, Iask such Members to consider the first maxim in their Boke of Curtasye, Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Prefaces are gift horses; and if mine buck or shy now and then, Iask their riders to sit steady, and take it easy. On the present one at least they'll be carried across some fresh country ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... heard they were gone from the district; they stuck up a coach in the West, And I rode by myself in the paddocks, taking a bit of a rest, Riding this colt as a youngster — awkward, half-broken and shy, He wheeled round one day on a sudden; I looked, but I couldn't see why, But I soon found out why, for before me, the hillside rose up like a wall, And there on the top with their rifles were Gilbert, ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... this change of footing, you yourself must make the advances. You must say, Go to, I will bear them in mind as I would a person I wished to cultivate. When occasion rises, you must introduce them into your talk. You will feel a bit shy about it, for introductions are difficult to accomplish gracefully; you will steal a furtive glance at your hearer perchance, and another at the word itself, as you would when first labeling a man "my friend Mr. Blank." But the embarrassment is momentary, and there is no other ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... they meant so many things at one time. They were sparkling, yet mournful; and they were wistful, although undeniably lively with the gayest comprehension of the recipient of their glance, seeming to say, "Oh, it's you, young man, is it!" And they were shy and mysterious with youth, full of that wonder at the world which has the appearance, sometimes, of wisdom gathered in the unknown out of which we came. But, above all, these eyes were ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... the little outing, and Alice, noticing it, and evasive ever, fought shy of the subject. She saw also that he was not aware of her brother's infatuation and from motives of delicacy forbore ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... moreover, made a great effort, for she was anxious to help Joe as much as possible in her difficulties. She talked to Ronald with a vivacity that was unusual, and Joe herself was astonished at the brilliance of her conversation. She had always thought Sybil very reserved, if not somewhat shy. ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... princess at her palace, but he still hesitated, perhaps with the secret hope that she might make one more advance towards him. The kind of self-brooding vanity, which he had so long cherished in secret, can be carried to absurd extremes, and is apt to be at once too retiring and too exacting. His shy reserve forbade him to call upon her, in spite of her express invitation, and yet he was audacious enough to cherish a hope that she would seek him at the place where he had already met her. Every day he went to the Cathedral ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... should not be sacrificed to any mistaken tenderness for this man's feelings. Little Arthur had not forgotten his father, but thirteen months of absence, during which he had seldom been permitted to hear a word about him, or hardly to whisper his name, had rendered him somewhat shy; and when he was ushered into the darkened room where the sick man lay, so altered from his former self, with fiercely flushed face and wildly-gleaming eyes—he instinctively clung to me, and stood looking on his father ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... hour later, when she met him, she was very shy. She turned an adorable pink, and then calmly rebuttoned the two top buttons of her waist, which had been hanging loose. And I noticed that Percy did precisely what I saw Dinky-Dunk once doing. He sat staring absently yet studiously at the milky white ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... meaning of which is easier to describe than to define, but it seems to express the very soul of magic. This orenda is your power to do things, your force, sometimes almost your personality. A man who hunts well has much and good orenda; the shy bird who escapes his snares has a fine orenda. The orenda of the rabbit controls the snow and fixes the depth to which it will fall. When a storm is brewing the magician is said to be making its orenda. When you yourself are in a rage, great is your orenda. The notes of birds are utterances ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... Alexina blazed her eyes at Aileen, who murmured hastily to the hostess: "I was just joking. I am Judge Lawton's daughter, and this is Mrs. Mortimer Dwight, Gora's sister-in-law. I'd never have told such a whopper but I'm so nervous and shy. I didn't think I could go ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... probably read the word without blinking, it went off in my hands with a bang. They tell me - the Sassenach tell me - that in time I shall be able without a blush to make Albert say 'darling,' and even gather her up in his arms, but I begin to doubt it; the moment sees me as shy as ever; I still find it advisable to lock the door, and then - no witness save the dog - I 'do' it dourly with my teeth clenched, while the dog retreats into the far corner and moans. The bolder Englishman (I am told) will write a love-chapter and then go out, quite coolly, to dinner, but ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... with only here and there an individual; and the inhabitants stare from their doors and windows at the stranger, and turn round to look at him after he has passed. The interest of the old town would soon be exhausted for the traveller, but I can conceive that a thoughtful and shy man might settle down here with the view of making the place a home, and spend many years in a sombre kind of happiness. I should prefer it to Florence as a residence, but it would be terrible without an independent life ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... which Gibbon had now to undergo. He was by nature shy and retiring; he was ignorant of French; he was very young; and with these disadvantages he was thrown among entire strangers alone. After the excitement and novelty of foreign travel were over, and he could realise his position, ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... in the hill, isn't it?" asked Walter. "Well, I'm glad they have come up—the Benny Blakeses. I like a lot of folks around here. It is apt to have a depressing effect upon me if company is scarce and fishing shy." ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose

... to an anchor, before we were surrounded by a great number of the natives, in sixteen or eighteen canoes, the most of whom were without any sort of weapons. At first they were shy in coming near the ship; but in a short time we prevailed on the people in one boat to get close enough to receive some presents. These we lowered down to them by a rope, to which, in return, they tied two fish that stunk intolerably, as did those they gave us in the morning. These mutual exchanges ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... diligence, and would show me where to look for what I wanted in his books, or explain difficulties: I looked up to him as a miracle of science and learning; nay, I was actually growing fond of him, but this did not last long. In process of time, he grew shy of explaining things to me; he scolded me for thumbing his books, though, God knows, my thumbs were always cleaner than his own, and he thwarted me continually upon some pretence or other. I could not for some ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... occasion, when I learnt that the Lovells were in the neighbourhood, I sought them out. Sinfi at first was extremely shy, or distant, or proud, or scared, and it was not till after one or two interviews that she relaxed. She still was overshadowed by some mysterious feeling towards me that seemed at one moment anger, at ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... attractive in his manners and attire, he is not so interesting or brilliant as his cousin, the Baltimore Oriole. He is restless and impulsive, but of a pleasant disposition, on good terms with his neighbors, and somewhat shy and difficult to observe closely, as he conceals himself in the densest foliage while at rest, or flies quickly about from twig to twig in search of insects, which, during the summer months, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... diamond. Pachmann is inhuman, and music, too, is inhuman. To him, and rightly, it is a thing not domesticated, not familiar as a household cat with our hearth. When he plays it, music speaks no language known to us, has nothing of ourselves to tell us, but is shy, alien, and speaks a language which we do not know. It comes to us a divine hallucination, chills us a little with its "airs from heaven" or elsewhere, and breaks down for an instant the too solid walls of the world, showing us the gulf. When d'Albert plays Chopin's Berceuse, beautifully, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... word was sent to His Majesty humbly asking the loan of the throne chair, which he then occupied, for use in the scene—a favor which His Royal Highness readily granted. At the end of the performance, word was brought to Booth that the King wished to see him. Booth, shy and modest as he was, and feeling that he could not speak the language, or that His Royal Highness could not speak his, approached His Majesty timidly. The latter stepped forward, slapped the actor heartily on the back and said: "Booth, this is as fine a performance as I saw ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... gentle youth, of nearly nineteen, darkly, pallidly handsome, sweet natured, and slovenly, like his mother, and, unlike her, poetical, idealistic, unpractical, shy, and self-conscious. He was, at this period, working in the office of one of the two solicitors, who, with the aid of a branch of a bank, a Petty Sessions Court, and the imposing, plate-glass bow-windows of Hallinan's hotel, enabled ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... pictures, caught almost anywhere during a journey: A knot of little children in difficulties with the village water-tap or high-handled pump. A soldier, bearded and fatherly, or young and slim and therefore rather shy of the big girls' chaff, comes forward and lifts the pail or swings the handle. His reward, from the smallest babe swung high in air, or, if he is an older man, pressed against his knees, is a ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling

... ladies there came one day one by herself to the young Florentine, asking him why he was so shy, and if none of the court ladies could make him sociable. Then she graciously invited him to come to her ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... partridge drum in the woods; He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; He found the tawny thrush's broods, And the shy hawk did wait for him. What others did at distance hear And guessed within the thicket's gloom Was shown to this philosopher, And at his ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... Nicky's dead, when they wouldn't, if they really knew. If they don't believe Lawrence or me, can't they believe Nicky? I'm only saying what he said. But I can't write to them about it because they make me shy, and I'm afraid they'll think I'm only gassing, or "making poetry"—as if poetry wasn't the most ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair

... only a moment, for, as Jeanette, shy, and dewy-eyed, held out her arms to her new-found friend, quite suddenly Lucile knew. Impulsively she threw her arms about the older girl and drew her close, whispering, softly, "Tell me all you feel you can, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... hand well over the crops raised under such shrewd, experienced management as that of Colonel Beverage is a stroke of policy. Therefore, as the bankers and jewelers have been polite, so now the cotton-merchants are civil; but the colonel is shy—an old bird and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... brooks, with the willow branches and great trout in the streams; and fat cattle would low with a foolish cry like a man wouldn't be all there, and come home in the evenings to be milked, satisfied and comfortable as a minister; wee calves shy as babies; donkeys with the cross of Christ on their back; goats would butt you and you not looking; hens a-cackle, and cocks strutting like a militiaman and him back from the camp; quiet horses had the strength of twenty men, and scampering ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... throw off opinions about this great man and that, and prate prosaically in blase monotone of the Beautiful. Sometimes these young persons give lectures on "Art as I Have Found It"; but do not be deceived by this—the art that lives is probably being produced by small, shy, red-headed men who work on a top floor, and whom you can only find with the help of a search-warrant. One sort talks of art, the other kind produces it. One tells of truth, the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... you think they are a little shy about speaking out their minds to their employers?-I cannot say what they do with others, but they speak ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... Paul's, Dr. Milman, admired and loved him, adding, that somehow he was strangely unlike any one else. However, at the time when I was elected Fellow of Oriel, he was not in residence, and he was shy of me for years, in consequence of the marks which I bore upon me of the Evangelical and Liberal schools, at least so I have ever thought. Hurrell Froude brought us together about 1828; it is one of the sayings ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... is a certain effect of light on your black hair which could rivet me for hours, my eyes full of tears, as I gazed at your sweet person, were it not that you turn away and say, 'For shame; you make me quite shy!' ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... expect to be answered by an answer; not by a question! You don't use to be so shy ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... the respectable women of Greece, especially the virgins, were practically kept under lock and key in the part of the house known as the gynaikonitis. This resulted in making them shy and bashful—but not coy, if we may judge from the mirror of life known as literature. Ramdohr observes, pertinently ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... grandmother, and disposed to cling for protection and mother-love to her elder sister Catherine. Catherine, in those two years, had blossomed out her beauty; her sallowness and green pallor had become bloom, though not rosy, rather an ineffable clear white like a lily. Her eyes, at once shy and antagonistic, had become as steady as stars in their estimation of self and others, and all her slender height was as well in her power of graceful guidance as the height of a young oak tree. Catherine, in those days, paid very little heed to me, for her one year of superior ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... sons of the house appeared, and with them Tom Southam, Jack's roommate at college. Jack had the same merry blue eyes and sunny smile as his sister, and Judith forgot to be shy with him. Thomas was a cheery youth, whose chief interest at the dinner-table was the food, and Judith gave him scant attention. But Tim, the elder brother, who had been in the Flying Corps and had several enemy machines to his credit, who still limped from injuries received during ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... exertion—fight shy of diversion (Remember, the proverb says 'Laugh and grow fat'); You may venture securely on Punch, because surely There can't be much fear of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... the world, and the converse of their people is polite. Thus 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 ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... this day, he has not been seen to approach the well, and it is with great difficulty he can be brought within sight of it. This fish lay in a dormant state for five months in the year, during which time she would eat nothing, and was likewise very shy."] ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... every heart that knew. "Their brother, their son come back, wounded, but proven and glorious." Yes, Rolf had a home, and in that intoxicating realization he kissed them all, even Annette of the glowing cheeks and eyes; though in truth he paid for it, for it conjured up in her a shy aloofness that lasted ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... trip out, and baskets of used forks and spoons and cups on the trip back. It was not a brilliant company that went in the launch. Jacob, Dr. Grayson's helper about camp, ran the engine. Being desperately shy, he attended strictly to business, and never so much as glanced at the girls packed in behind him. Half a dozen of the younger camp girls, who never did anything but whisper together, carve stones for their favorite councilors, and giggle continually; ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey

... any way to please people was a good way," retorted Sally, saying more with her eyes than with her voice,—so much more, that in fact this fly was fast. A little puff of wind blew off Sally's bonnet; she looked shy, flushed, lovely. George stood up on his feet, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... They were suffering under hooping-cough and measles, and looked miserably dejected. We endeavoured in vain to prevail on one of them to accompany us for the purpose of killing ducks, which were numerous, but too shy for our sportsmen. We had the satisfaction, however, of exchanging the mouldy pemmican, obtained at Swampy Lake, for a better kind, and received, moreover, a small, but very acceptable, supply of fish. Holey ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... and often attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and displeasing. These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition; for they sing with an erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance; are shy and wild in breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes and commons; nay even the very tops of the Sussex-downs, where there are bushes and covert; but in July and August they bring their broods into ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... safe; and that, in case any trouble arose, they were to let me know, and I would myself come to their assistance. The tribes were, Lundu, Sarambo, Bombak, Paninjow, and Sow. The only other tribe on the right-hand river were the Singe, a powerful and stiff-necked people, with good reason to be shy; but when once they are treated justly, their strength will be advantageous, and give them confidence ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... The clergyman's shy and sensitive reserve had balked this scheme. Roger Chillingworth, however, was inclined to be hardly, if at all, less satisfied with the aspect of affairs, which Providence—using the avenger and his victim for its own purposes, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... so well just before the rain is because of the lull that takes place, causing the water to become flat and still, so rendering objects, especially the angler, more distinct. The bass is a very wary fish, and requires but little to make them uneasy and shy. Night and morning is the best time for bait fishing, unless the weather be cold; then from about 3 to 6 p. m. For fly fishing, two hours after sunrise and one hour or two before dark will be found ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford

... ever knew what it meant. It was long, and sounded like an explanation. Having spoken, Miltiades suddenly looked shy. He wriggled towards the top of the ladder. Dion thought that Rosamund would try to stop him from leaving her, but she did not. On the contrary, she drew up her legs and made way for him, carefully. The child ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... reached the woods, where the white birches stood like shy dryads among the oaks, she heard once more the robin's flutelike call. It was answered by another, exactly upon the same notes, yet wholly different as to quality. Presently, among the trees, she caught a glimpse of a tall man, and she paused for an instant, ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... are sweet With smell of ripening fruit. Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, Flatter, at coming feet, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... given his hand, if not his heart, to some other woman? And could not she who held his hand learn to reach his heart? And to whom would that hand have been given, the hand and all that went with it? What woman would this shy Welsh hermit, without friends or relations, have ever been thrown in with except herself—Elizabeth—who loved him as much as she could love anybody, which, perhaps, was not very much; who, at any rate, desired sorely to be his wife. Would not ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... the first place, the giraffe inhabits only those countries about which very little is known by civilised people; secondly, it is but rarely seen, even by travellers; and, thirdly, when it is encountered in its native haunts, it is of so shy a disposition, and so ready to take flight, that scarce any opportunity is ever obtained for properly ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid

... of wickedness it reveals!" exclaimed Miss Lane. "Who would have imagined that such a nice appearing boy as Carl Woodford could be so base? And Susie Glenn too, such a shy, modest ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen

... half inches in height, but well proportioned. Her features are admirably adapted for the skill of the painter, and equally so for the chisel of the sculptor. She is modest and remarkably pleasant in her manners, and perfectly free from the shy awkward gait of country girls in general. And you will be surprised when I inform you, that there is excellent accommodation to be met with at the Longstone lighthouse, although it stands alone, upon a barren rock, five miles from the mainland. ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... rejoined the perplexed Magus, "swing! Egad I fear it's a ticklish business. But there's no fighting shy, I fear, with Barbara present; and then there's that infernal autem-bawler; it will be so cursedly regular. If you had done the job, Balty, it would not have signified a brass farden. Luckily there will be no vitnesses to snitch upon us. There will be ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... are not at all shy, and though not as neighborly and social as the Chickadee, or Snow-bird, still they will not fly away from the presence of ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous

... as sudden a retreat round the nearest corner as was possible. He said afterwards that he hadn't the courage to thank me. I brought him to bay at last, and came to know him very well; and then I discovered how the nervousness, the bashfulness, the mauvaise honte, which made him so shy and retiring in private, stood him in wonderful stead on the stage. The nervous man became the fretful and capricious tyrant of mock tragedy; the bashful man warmed at the foot-lights with passion and power. The manner which in society was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... of course he isn't. He is a splendid farmer, his mother tells me, and greatly "respeckit" in the district. But the poor dear was so frightened of me that he simply bolted from the house the moment he had finished his tea. The sister is pretty, and nice too, but shy. I'm afraid she found my clothes rather overpowering, though I'd only a coat and skirt on. But we got on splendidly after that. She is going to be married next month, to the minister, which is considered an immense triumph for her by ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... moonlight shining on his face, showing his eyes half shut, and talking in his quietest way, as if he were dreaming it all over again, or speaking to himself! I hardly breathed, till he broke off suddenly and laughed in quite a shy sort of way, ashamed of being 'egotistical,' though he hadn't praised himself at all. The flowery things I've said are mine. He even apologized! I felt I'd never had so great a compliment in my life. It seemed too good to be true that such a man should have opened his heart to ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... intersect this desolate area are lined on both sides by walls from 7 to 10 or 12 feet in height. They are plastered white and overgrown by the ivy; and as one walks along in these, he may well occupy his time in watching a species of little reptiles that are very nimble but shy, running up the high smooth walls as easily as along the ground. They are harmless, no doubt, but I dreaded them quite as much as if I had been in a similar danger of treading upon snakes! They dart ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... wandering tune. Nick took the sound up softly, and stood by the wet stones a little while, imitating the bird's trilling note, and laughing to hear it answer timidly, as if it took him for some great new bird without wings. Cocking its shy head and watching him shrewdly with its beady eye, it sat, almost persuaded that it was only size which made them different, until Nick clapped his cap upon his head and strolled back, singing as ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... canvass progressed, it was comical to note how shy the politicians fought of the women to whom they had promised assistance. Judge O. P. Mason, who had agreed to give ten lectures for the amendment, and whose advocacy would have had immense weight, engaged to speak for the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... of fourteen I first made acquaintance with Oxford while my uncle was still Professor. I remember well some of his lectures, the crowded lecture-hall, the manner and personality of the speaker, and my own shy pride in him—from a great distance. For I was a self-conscious, bookish child, and my days of real friendship with him were still far ahead. But during the years that followed, the ten years that he held his professorship, what a spell he wielded over ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... unspoken thought, "Yes, she does, look a sight as Liza used to." The one woman whom others had connected with the idea of Uncle Josh's marrying had been dead long ago. It was said he had meant to ask her to be his wife when he should have laid by a certain sum of money, but the shy and reticent man suddenly found her "spoken for," as the villagers termed it, by the mate of a vessel. She died of consumption, unmarried. Uncle Josh never referred to this passage in his life, but his mother knew his mind, and why his words grew fewer than ever. The little Molly ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... two of the women in the passage became hysterical. The young men looked on awkwardly, with grave faces, not knowing what to do. There was something very English in their shy aloofness; in their dislike of intruding in ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... no remark to Irene—perhaps she was shy—but, starting off at a quick pace, led her down a long passage into a room on the ground floor. It was a pleasant room with a French window that opened out on to a veranda, where, over a marble balustrade, there was a view of an orange garden and the sea. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... Americans are shy on, both in speaking and singing, is articulation. I always had an idea that I enunciated uncommonly clearly—until I went over there, when I learned more about speaking plainly in three days than I had in a ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... to secure the hand of the beautiful Miss Effingham, and not daring to risk another trial, as it might spoil the plans he had been contemplating since Edith's dismissal of him, he had kept shy of that young lady during the remainder of his stay, and prior to his departure for London, he had contrived to have a long interview with the Baronet, during which he very ably showed the position that he would hold should the Baronetcy eventually descend ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... religion, not merely for spiritual aid, but for the comfort of space and rest in this world of crowding and bustle; for the sense of a piece of heaven closed in for one's need and all one's very own. Dear Madame Blanc, how many shy shadows do we not seem to see around us since her death; or rather to guess at, roaming disconsolate, lacking they scarce know what, that ever-welcoming sanctuary of ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... simple and sweet and very shy," reproved Kate. "So shy that she will doubtless be painfully embarrassed at meeting you, and ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... with Diener when he was fourteen or fifteen. He had had for him one of those childish friendships which precede love, and are themselves a sort of love. [Footnote: See Jean-Christophe—I: "The Morning."] Diener had loved him too. The shy, reserved boy had been attracted by Christophe's gusty independence: he had tried hard to imitate him, quite ridiculously: that had both irritated and flattered Christophe. Then they had made plans for the overturning of the world. In the ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... astonishment, however, she remarked that the strange gentleman still remained standing by her side, and, raising her calm blue eyes, she looked fixedly at him. What followed was for her most unusual: she was obliged to withdraw her glance, for, contrary to her expectation, she did not find Mr. Johnsen shy, awkward, and impressed with the strange surroundings. It was plain, however, that he was conscious that his behaviour was unconventional, but he did not therefore desist. This caused Rachel to lose somewhat ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... you sons of the devil, stand still! You prance and shy as if Satan himself had stuck a dart in you! Hey, there!—Back, back, you limb! Will the ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... Kitty answered, with a shy sort of stiffness, which seemed to show that she could well dispense with his kindness. Hugo laughed to himself, and pictured Vivian's discomfiture if he had seen the reception of his present. He changed ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... and Lord Harcourt. These, with a few other eminent barristers, used to meet at a coffee-house, and drink their favourite, and then fashionable, liquor—called Bishop, which consisted of red wine, lemon, and sugar. Samuel was a shy character, and loved privacy. He had a good country house, and handsome chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and kept a carriage for his sister's use, having his coachmaker's arms painted upon the panel. What is very characteristic of the modesty of his profession, he pertinaciously ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... light—a golden dream— A morning fair—a path of flowers! But now another charm came o'er me: The ocean I had never seen; Yet suddenly it rolled before me, With all its crested waves of green! Soft sunny islands, far and lone, Where the shy petrel builds her nest; Deep coral caves to mermaids known— These were my visions bright and blest. Oh! how I yearned to meet the tide, And hear the bristling surges sweep; To stand the watery world beside, And ponder o'er the glorious deep! I bade my home adieu, and bent My eager ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... made the acquaintance of Larime Hutchinson, then a lad of twenty, shy, self-conscious, pathetically credulous, and hobbled by a prodigious ineptitude which made him a favorite butt for schoolboy jokes and pranks. Larime was in great disfavor with the teachers because he almost never had his lessons. He was also in disfavor with the college treasurer ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... this was done that the bear, finding it too troublesome, for he is economical of labour, to remove the body nearer to his den, would satisfy his hunger on the spot, and offer an opportunity to overtake him at his meals; besides, the bear, being quick of sight and shy, and so sensitive of scent that he can smell a man at the distance of a mile or more if he approaches with the wind, will frequently leave his food and as frequently return to it; and, therefore, the Norwegians conceal themselves in the kind of sheds I have described ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... night in rattlesnake regions often surrounds his sleeping place with a horsehair rope as a safeguard against such an unwelcome intruder. Even the hungry, prowling coyote, who would make short work of the rat could he but get at him, fights shy of lacerating his paws by attempting to ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... kindness, which I shall not easily forget, a bunch of sweet-smelling marjoram. The acknowledgement which the miserable creature attempted to make for the seasonable aid, convinced me that he was something better than he seemed. A shy and half-formed bow—the impulse of a heart and mind once cultivated, though covered now with weeds and noxious growths—redeemed him from the common herd of thieves. In the calendar his age was stated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... Bristles, as literary master of the ceremonies, had made a call on Mr Sidsby to proceed with his reading of the first act of his play. A tall young gentleman, very good-looking, and very shy, was with difficulty persuaded to seat himself in the middle of the room; and with trembling hands he drew from his pocket a roll of manuscript, though, to judge from his manner, he did not seem quite master ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... night, a regrettable circumstance, which does not allow me to follow the worker's methods. I see the result; and that is all. Were I to visit the building-yard by the light of a lantern, I should be no wiser. The Spider, who is very shy, would at once dive into her lair; and I should have lost my sleep for nothing. Furthermore, she is not a very diligent labourer; she likes to take her time. Two or three bits of wool or raphia placed in position represent a whole ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... a home. This plant was the heather. She had not the sweet fragrance of the violet, and the children did not love her as they did the daisy. The reason was that no blossoms had been given to her, and she was too shy to ask for any. ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook

... beauties are a quick and abundant shower. The delicate phrases are so mingled with the flagrant that it is difficult to quote them without rousing that general sense of humour of which any one may make a boast; and I am therefore shy even of citing the "brisk cherub" who has early sipped the Saint's tear: "Then to his music," in Crashaw's divinely simple phrase; and his singing "tastes of this breakfast all day long." Sorrow is a queen, he cries to the Weeper, and when sorrow would be seen in state, "then is she drest by ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell

... big woodland caribou of the northern wilderness. His Milicete name means The Wandering One, but it ought to mean the Mysterious and the Changeful as well. If you hear that he is bold and fearless, that is true; and if you are told that he is shy and wary and inapproachable, that is also true. For he is never the same two days in succession. At once shy and bold, solitary and gregarious; restless as a cloud, yet clinging to his feeding ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long

... home there was little change. Abraham Bradbury had insisted on sending his favorite grandson, Joel, a youth of twenty-two, to take De Courcy's place for a few months. He was a shy quiet creature, with large brown eyes like a fawn's, and young Henry Donnelly and he became friends at once. It was believed that he would inherit the farm at his grandfather's death; but he was as subservient to Friend Donnelly's wishes in regard to the farming operations as if the latter held ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... boy, pretty things are like pretty women—better light shy of them; they often bring trouble. What ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... with them came from behind a bush near the water's edge and walked up to its knees in the water towards us; the boat was backed in and we endeavoured to entice it within our reach by throwing some food; but the animal, upon discovering that we were strangers, became shy, and after smelling about ran back towards a bush about fifty yards off; from which the natives, who had all the time been concealed behind it, rushed out and with loud shouts ran towards us: upon reaching the water's edge they ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King



Words linked to "Shy" :   wary, diffident, confident, insufficient, shyness, timid, shy person, colloquialism, shy away from, work-shy, start



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