coy1
/kɔɪ
/adjective (coyer, coyest)
1(Especially with reference to a woman) making a pretence of shyness or modesty which is intended to be alluring: she treated him to a coy smile of invitation...
- True, she's as coy and feminine as she wants to be.
- We've flirted at balls, and she was as coy as a twenty-four year-old!
- She's coy enough to curdle butter, looking up at him from under her lashes.
Synonyms
arch, simpering, coquettish, flirtatious, kittenish, skittish;
shy, modest, bashful, reticent, diffident, retiring, backward, self-effacing, shrinking, withdrawn, timid, demure
2Reluctant to give details about something regarded as sensitive: he is coy about his age...
- Clifford is coy about this, ‘No, I think I've got my work cut out here quite frankly.’
- Nor was the administration coy about its reasons.
- This was no time to be coy about asking for money.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French coi, quei, from Latin quietus (see quiet). The original sense was 'quiet, still' (especially in behaviour), later 'modestly retiring', and hence (of a woman) 'affecting to be unresponsive to advances'.
requiem from Middle English:
This is from Latin requies ‘rest’, the first word of the Mass for the Dead, said or sung for the repose of their souls: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine ‘Grant them, O Lord, eternal rest’. The Latin word goes back to quietus ‘quiet’, which is the source of quit, requite (early 16th century), and tranquil (early 17th century) and, via the French for quiet, coy (Middle English).
Rhymes
Coy2
/kɔɪ/abbreviation chiefly Military
Company.
- occasionality
- occasionally
- retroserrate
- retrospect
- retrospection
- retrospective
- retrospectively
- retrospectivity
- retrospectus
- retrosternal
- retrosynthetic
- retro-system
- retro-thrust
- retro-transfer
- retrotransposition
- retrotransposon
- retroussage
- retroussé
- retrovaccination
- retroverse
- retroversion
- retrovert
- retroverted
- Retrovir
- retroviral