Word.ws English Dictionary

shy bairns get nowt

UK/ʃaɪ bɛənz ɡɛt naʊt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England[ʃaɪ bɛːnz ɡɛʔ naʊʔ]

shy bairns get nowt proverb: if you're too shy, or don't ask, you will not get what you want.

shy bairns get nowt: if you're too shy, or don't ask, you will not get what you want
Image: Hermann Kaulbach, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Proverb

shy bairns get nowt

  1. (Geordie) If you're too shy, or don't ask, you will not get what you want.
    • A' forgot te ask 'er fo' me money back!
      Wye, shy bairns get nowt.
    • Aye, Mary, we heard you. How could we not? Ah well, shy bairns get nowt. Will we let her at the microphone and give me a bit peace?1994, Fiona Cooper, A Skyhook in the Midnight Sun, London; New York, N.Y.: Serpent's Tail, →ISBN, page 121

Examples of shy bairns get nowt in a sentence

  • As the saying goes in the north-east, ‘shy bairns get nowt’!2007, “Rob [Rob has a Six-year-old Son who was Infected with Cytomegalovirus as a Baby]”, in Jill Harrison, Matthew Henderson, Rob Leonard...
  • An old Geordie saying says: ‘Shy bairns get nowt!’ It literally means ‘shy children get nothing’, but is used to emphasise that people should speak up for themselves.2011, John Marrin, “Ten Tips on Taking the Lead”, in Leadership for Dummies (For Dummies Series), Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley...

Forms of shy bairns get nowt

alternative formshy bairns get noot

Origin of shy bairns get nowt

Literally “shy children get nothing”, a reference to the shyness of children when making requests.

Questions about shy bairns get nowt

What does shy bairns get nowt mean?
Shy bairns get nowt means if you're too shy, or don't ask, you will not get what you want.
How do you use shy bairns get nowt in a sentence?
As the saying goes in the north-east, ‘shy bairns get nowt’!
What part of speech is shy bairns get nowt?
Shy bairns get nowt is a proverb.
How do you pronounce shy bairns get nowt?
Shy bairns get nowt is pronounced /ʃaɪ bɛənz ɡɛt naʊt/ (UK).

Words near shy bairns get nowt in the dictionary

  1. shxt
  2. shy
  3. shy away
  4. shy away from
  5. shy bairns get noot
  6. shy bairns get nowt
  7. shy bladder
  8. shy bladders
  9. shy greenhood
  10. shy greenhoods
  11. shy Tories

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shy bairns get nowt (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: ShyBairnsGetNowtPronunc.ogg.

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