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1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. , London: Benj Motte,, →OCLC, (please specify |part=I to IV):
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.
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,, →OCLC, page 25:
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: […]
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.
1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “. Canto I.”, in Hudibras, London; republished in A R Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:
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,
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, “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, →OCLC, page 33:
[…] I am very ſhy of building any thing of moment upon foundations that I eſteem ſo unſure, […]
By our count your shipment came up two shy of the bill of lading amount.
It is just shy of a mile from here to their house.
2013, Terence Winter, The Wolf of Wall Street, spoken by Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio):
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.
(UK,politics, of a voter) Less likely to reveal whom they will vote for than average, chiefly in the context of the collective effect this has on pollingaccuracy.
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(Can we date this quote by Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?) (page 172)
Courts might tend to shy from limiting Congress under such a vague standard.
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.
"I was thinking, sir," I answered, "that I should like to shy the Diamond into the quicksand, and settle the question in that way."
(Scotland,transitive,intransitive) To throw a ball with two hands above the head, especially when it has crossed the side lines in a football (soccer) match.
(Scotland) To hit the ball back into play from the sidelines in a shinty match.
(Scotland) In shinty, the act of tossing the ball above the head and hitting it with the shaft of the caman to bring it back into play after it has been hit out of the field.