Word.ws English Dictionary

shyful

shyful adjective: inclined to shy, or jump back in fear.

Adjective

shyful (comparative more shyful, superlative most shyful)

  1. (rare) Inclined to shy, or jump back in fear.
    • My body tensed and went slack, then tensed quickly again, just the same as the mounts I used to walk between polo chukkers at Onwensia Stables—walking hots we called it—the lathered, snorting horses skittish and shyful after someone had run their asses off for fifteen minutes or so.2010, Larry Heinemann, Close Quarters
  2. (nonstandard, rare) Exhibiting shyness; timid.
    • She was somewhat shyful seeing the eternal couple before her.2004, B. K. Chaturvedi, Kalki Purana
    • Through shyful glances a love was born2019, Milos Slavkovic, Mirko Topalski, Lightstep #4

Forms of shyful

comparativemore shyful
superlativemost shyful

Origin of shyful

From shy + -ful.

Questions about shyful

What does shyful mean?
Shyful means inclined to shy, or jump back in fear.
What part of speech is shyful?
Shyful is an adjective.

Words near shyful in the dictionary

  1. shye
  2. shyeah
  3. shyer
  4. shyers
  5. shyest
  6. shyful
  7. shying
  8. shying away
  9. shying away from
  10. shyings
  11. shyish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shyful (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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Cite this entry: “shyful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shyful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.