coy
/kɔɪ/
coy adjective: bashful, shy, retiring.
Adjective
coy (comparative coyer, superlative coyest)
- Bashful, shy, retiring.
- Quiet, reserved, modest.
- Reluctant to give details about something sensitive; notably prudish.
- Pretending shyness or modesty, especially in an insincere or flirtatious way.
- The ill-bred miss, the bird-brained Jill, / May simper and be coy at will; / A lady, sir, as you will find, / Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind, / Means what she says and scorns to fence / And palter with feigned innocence.1981, A. D. Hope, “His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell”, in A Book of Answers
- Soft, gentle, hesitating.
- Enforced hate, / Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee.1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC
Verb
coy (third-person singular simple present coys, present participle coying, simple past and past participle coyed)
- To caress, pet; to coax, entice.
- Come sit thee down upon this flowery bed, / While I thy amiable cheeks do coy.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
- To calm or soothe.
- To allure; to decoy.
- For now there are ſprung up a wiſer generation in this kind, who have the Art to coy the fonder ſort into their nets1635, Edward Rainbowe, Labour Forbidden, and Commanded. A Sermon Preached at S^(t.) Pauls^([sic]) Church, September 28. 1634., London: Nicholas Vavasour, page 29
Noun (1)
coy (plural coys)
Noun (2)
coy (plural coys)
- A company
Proper noun capitalized: Coy
Coy (plural Coys)
- A surname.
- An unincorporated community in McDonald County, Missouri.
coy meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
coy in Urdu
- حیا دار, خجل, شرمیلا
coy in Bengali
- coy
- লাজুক lajuk
coy in Malayalam
- നാണംകുണുങ്ങിയായ, ലജ്ജയുള്ള, വിനീതനായ
coy in Kannada
- ನಾಚಿಕೆಯ, ಬಿನ್ನಾಣದ, ಲಜ್ಜೆಯುಳ್ಳ, ಬಿಂಕದ, ನಾಚುವ
More languagesFewer languages
- coy in Punjabi
- ਕੌਏ
Examples of coy in a sentence
- LIKE her brash, unflirtatious designs for urban tomboys, Alice Roi is not coy.
- In Your Face: There is nothing coy about Dave Quick’s motorized assemblages at Ovsey Gallery.
- Coy Co.'s Safe Deposit on West 24th Street, N.Y., comes nearest the kernel.
Forms of coy
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | coyer |
| superlative | coyest |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | coys |
| present participle | coying |
| past participle | coyed |
| past | coyed |
| Noun | |
| plural | coys |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Coys |
| alternative form | Coye |
Origin of coy
From Middle English coy, from Old French coi, earlier quei (“quiet, still”), from Latin qu(i)ētus (“resting, at rest”). Doublet of quit, quiet, quite, and quietus.
Compare decoy.
Abbreviation of company.
Words formed from coy
Phrases with coy
Words that rhyme with coy
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- joy
- alloy
- Amoy
- cloy
- convoy
- deploy
- goy
- oi
- overjoy
- ploy
- travois
- ahoy
- annoy
- catboy
- Choi
- foxboy
- foy
- Hanoi
- hoi polloi
- kathoey
- poi
- Saint Croix
- soy
- Sukhoi
- accoy
- bok choy
- cocky's joy
- diaperboy
- doy
- Floy
- hoi
- hoo, boy
- hoy
- killjoy
- Kilroy
- koi
- loy
- man and boy
- noy
- oe
- oy
- pick-me boy
- ploye
- po' boy
- puppyboy
- Savoie
- stroy
- sugoi
Questions about coy
- What does coy mean?
- Coy means bashful, shy, retiring.
- What is coy in Urdu?
- Coy in Urdu is حیا دار, خجل, شرمیلا. See Coy meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is coy?
- Coy can be an adjective, a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce coy?
- Coy is pronounced /kɔɪ/.
Words near coy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: coy (page history and authors); Coy (page history and authors); coy (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); লাজুক (Bengali) (page history and authors); coy (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); coy (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); coy (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-coy.ogg, en-au-coy.ogg.
Cite this entry: “coy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.