different between fearful vs shy

English

Alternative forms

• fearefull (obsolete)
• fearfull (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English ferful, fervol, equivalent to fear +? -ful.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?f??f?l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?f??f?l/
• Rhymes: -???f?l
• Hyphenation: fear?ful

Adjective

fearful (comparative fearfuller or fearfuler or more fearful, superlative fearfullest or fearfulest or most fearful)

1. Frightening.
2. Tending to fear; timid.

   a fearful boy

3. (dated) Terrible; shockingly bad.
4. (now rare) Frightened; filled with terror.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.4:

     Those two great champions did attonce pursew / The fearefull damzell with incessant payns […]

Synonyms

• (frightened): frightened, timid, timorous
• See also Thesaurus:afraid and Thesaurus:cowardly

Translations

Adverb

fearful (comparative more fearful, superlative most fearful)

1. (dialect) Extremely; fearfully.

Further reading

• fearful in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• fearful in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Lauffer

English

Etymology

From Middle English shy (“shy”), from Old English s??oh (“shy”), from Proto-West Germanic *skeuh (“shy, fearful”), from Proto-Germanic *skeuhaz (“shy, fearful”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian skjou (“shy”), Dutch schuw (“shy”), German scheu (“shy”), Danish sky (“shy”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?a?/
• Rhymes: -a?
• Homophone: Chi

Adjective

shy (comparative shier or shyer or more shy, superlative shiest or shyest or most shy)

1. Easily frightened; timid.
   • 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

     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.

2. Reserved; disinclined to familiar approach.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:shy

   Antonyms: audacious, bold, brazen, gregarious, extroverted, outgoing

   • 1712, John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull

     What makes you so shy, my good friend? There's nobody loves you better than I.

3. Cautious; wary; suspicious.
   • 1641, Henry Wotton, The Characters of Robert Devereux and George Villiers

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

   • 1661, Robert Boyle , Some Considerations Touching Experimental Essays in General

     I am very shy of building any thing of moment upon foundations

4. (informal) Short, insufficient or less than.
5. Embarrassed.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Usage notes

• Often used in combination with a noun to produce an adjective or adjectival phrase.
• Adjectives are usually applicable to animals (leash-shy "shy of leashes" or head shy "shy of contact around the head" (of horses)) or to children.

Derived terms

• shy bairns get nowt, shy bairns get noot

Translations

See also

• bashful
• reserved
• timid
• demure
• coy

Verb

shy (third-person singular simple present shies, present participle shying, simple past and past participle shied)

1. (intransitive) To avoid due to caution or timidness.

2. (intransitive) To jump back in fear.

3. (transitive) To throw sideways with a jerk; to fling.

Translations

Noun

shy (plural shies)

1. An act of throwing.

   • 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

   • 1846, Punch Volume 10

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

   • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin 2009, p. 55:

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

2. A place for throwing.

3. A sudden start aside, as by a horse.
4. In the Eton College wall game, a point scored by lifting the ball against the wall in the calx.

Derived terms

• coconut shy
• have a shy

Translations

Anagrams

• Hys, hys, syh