Definition of "shy"

The horses of the army, and those of the royal stables, having been daily led before me, were no longer shy, but would come up to my very feet without starting.

1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], (please specify |part=I to IV)

VVhat makes you ſo ſhy of late, my good Friend? There's no Body loves you better than I, nor has taken more Pains in your Affairs: […]

1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], “An Account of the Conference between Mrs. Bull and Don Diego Dismallo”, in John Bull in His Senses: Being the Second Part of Law is a Bottomless-Pit. […], Edinburgh: […] James Watson, […], page 25

Graham Norton: But the people coming up to you now, like the Americans, well, you know, the Americans, they're not shy, the Americans. / Maggie Smith: No. Well, no but I don't go anywhere where really they can get at me. It's usually in museums and art galleries and things, so that limits things. I keep away from there, and Harrod's I don't go near.

2015 October 30, The Graham Norton Show, season 18, episode 6

We grant, although he had much wit, / H' was very shy of using it; / As being loth to wear it out, / And therefore bore it not about,

16, [Samuel Butler], Hudibras. The , London; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, canto 1

Princes are, by wisdom of state, somewhat shy of their successors.

1641, Henry Wotton, The Characters of Robert Devereux and George Villiers

[…] I am very ſhy of building any thing of moment upon foundations that I eſteem ſo unſure, […]

1661, Robert Boyle, “A Proemial Essay, wherein, with Some Considerations Touching Experimental Essays in General, is Interwoven such an Introduction to All Those Written by the Author, as is Necessary to be Perus’d for the Better Understanding of Them”, in Certain Physiological Essays and Other Tracts; […], 2nd edition, London: […] Henry Herringman […], published 1669, page 33

The year I turned 26, as the head of my own brokerage firm, I made $49 million, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.

2013, Terence Winter, The Wolf of Wall Street, spoken by Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio)

United move seventh - still six points off a Champions League place and a massive 16 shy of the lead held by rivals Manchester City.

2018 December 1, Tom Rostance, “Southampton 2 – 2 Manchester United”, in BBC Sport‎

Courts might tend to shy from limiting Congress under such a vague standard.

(page 172)

Then two or three boys laughed and sneered, and a big brutal fellow, who was standing in the middle of the room, picked up a slipper, and shied it at the kneeling boy, calling him a snivelling young shaver.

1857, [Thomas Hughes], “How the Tide Turned”, in Tom Brown’s School Days. […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., part II, page 248

"I was thinking, sir," I answered, "that I should like to shy the Diamond into the quicksand, and settle the question in that way."

1868 January 4 – June 6, [William] Wilkie Collins, “First Period. The Loss of the Diamond (1848). […]”, in The Moonstone. A Romance. […], volume I, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], published 1868, chapter VI, page 78

Foker discharged a prodigious bouquet at her, and even Smirke made a feeble shy with a rose, and blushed dreadfully when it fell into the pit

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850

If Lord Brougham gets a stone in his hand, he must, it seems, have a shy at somebody.

1846, Punch, volume 10

The game had started. A man was chasing the ball, it went out for a shy.

2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 55