Shy

How to spell shy

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shy

What does shy mean?

1. adjectiveNervous or reserved in the company of other people; easily made uncomfortable by attention.
2. verbTo move suddenly sideways in alarm, as a horse does, or to draw back in reluctance.
3. adjectiveLacking or short of a stated amount.

Shy in a sentence

• adjective

  The new colleague was too shy to speak up in meetings.

• verb

  The horse will shy at the sound of a passing lorry.

• adjective

  The donation total was just a few pounds shy of the target.

• adjective

  As a child she was painfully shy around strangers.

• verb

  Investors tend to shy away from anything that looks risky.

• adjective

  He retired one win shy of the club record.

Where does shy come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English sceoh, which meant 'easily frightened' or 'timid', and it was originally applied to skittish animals as much as to bashful people. The same Germanic root gave German 'scheu', also meaning timid or shy, so the family resemblance across the languages is clear. The spelling settled into its modern short form by way of Middle English, where the 'sc' softened to the 'sh' sound we now hear. By the 1600s the verb sense had developed, describing the sudden sideways jump a startled horse makes, which still survives in riding language today. The trap in the spelling is the silent-feeling 'y' standing in for the long vowel, a pattern shared with 'sky' and 'fly', so once a writer connects it to those it rarely goes wrong.

How the word is built

• shy (single Old English root sceoh, meaning timid or easily startled; no prefix or suffix)