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coy
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

coy as in:  a coy, flirtatious smile

show 1 more with this conextual meaning
  • Then they became friendly, and played about in the nervous, half-coy way with which fierce beasts belie their fierceness.   (source)
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coy as in:  coy about her intentions

show 6 more with this conextual meaning
  • "Hassan," Baba said, smiling coyly, "meet your birthday present."   (source)
    coyly = in a manner of one slow to share details
  • "When can I see you?"
    "Certainly not until you finish An Imperial Affliction." I enjoyed being coy.   (source)
    coy = acting reluctant to make a definite or committing statement
  • "My little secret, mustn't peek," she said coyly, but the doctors had come to see Angela.   (source)
    coyly = being reluctant to share a secret
  • "What do you want to do with him?" he said. Then a coy smile. Or to him.   (source)
    coy = reluctant to say something bluntly
  • "Why do you ask?" He was looking at me coyly.   (source)
    coyly = in a manner that does not immediately share desired information
  • "I'm familiar with the version of the situation you gave Mr. Andrews," he said. His cheeks dimpled with a coy smile.   (source)
    coy = reluctant to say something bluntly
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • At the top right-hand corner, one set of initials coyly declared its love for another set, as is their habit.†   (source)
  • And he meant to forgive her, but at the sight of her, playful and coy, all his arguments from the past night possessed him again: How she pandered.†   (source)
  • He knows she has seen him come in but is playing coy and keeping her head down.†   (source)
  • The yellow canine thus coyly revealed was as long as my longest finger.†   (source)
  • He would hint at having information that could help us, but he was coy and slow to share anything concrete.†   (source)
  • "Anyway," she resumed, but without the coy lightheadedness of a few moments ago, "what I'm trying to say is that if you're not careful, people will talk."†   (source)
  • When the policemen took her to the county jail and booked her for driving under the influence, she wanted to scream and scratch their faces, but instead she held herself in check and coyly thanked them for coming to her rescue.†   (source)
  • As Francis walked toward them, his hands coyly behind his back, Mae and Jackie both watched him, Mae feeling sweat pool in her armpits and also sensing that Jackie had a more than professional feeling for him.†   (source)
  • And the map was coy ered with a grid and each square of the grid had two numberson it.†   (source)
  • Grandmother, who was rendered coy with false modesty, said simply that she had always had a special understanding of 1927—and I don't doubt it: she would have been a beautiful young woman then; "and your mother," Grandmother told me, "would have been younger than you."†   (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • I'm not even trying to be coy.†   (source)
  • Her heart pounded, but she managed a coy smile as Dorian bowed to her, opened the door, and they went inside.†   (source)
  • Besides, there was the way she beamed at me, smiling with her whole self, and how a coy gesture like tucking her hair back could make me want to follow her, help her, do anything she asked.†   (source)
  • You're awake," she said, in a coy whisper.†   (source)
  • A tall nettle with a preening look, its head coyly drooping and its middle leaves turned outward like hands protesting innocence—this was Lola, and though she whimpered for mercy, the singing arc of a three-foot switch cut her down at the knees and sent her worthless torso flying.†   (source)
  • Kalyani looked down and smiled, coyly acknowledging her bigotry.†   (source)
  • His coy response frustrates me.†   (source)
  • Then one day we were up in his room with several minutes to kill before we set off for some checks, and I noticed something odd coming into his manner: something coy and deliberate which made me think he was after some sex.†   (source)
  • It wriggled, trying to get free, then clambered into the hut, where it ate a piece of meat, curled up, and blinked coyly at him.†   (source)
  • At times she gave off a kind of come-get-me energy, coy and flirtatious, but apparently it never bothered Mark Fossie.†   (source)
  • She acted coy, diffident, but alluring.†   (source)
  • Bressia was one of those smug, independent worlds, pleased with both its convenient access to the Web and its eight-month separation from it, growing rich from the export of diamonds, burr root, and its unequaled coffee, coyly refusing to become a colony world but still dependent upon the Hegemony Protectorate and Common Market to meet its soaring economic goals.†   (source)
  • I assumed someone was being coy, keeping you a secret.†   (source)
  • The coy smile was still in place, but he wasn't looking at her, and she left dissatisfied.†   (source)
  • "Fate" being the writer's coy allusion to marriage.†   (source)
  • "What I do happen to know," I said, being maybe a tiny bit coy, "is that a civet cat got all of the Nguzas' hens last Sunday.†   (source)
  • No particular reason to be coy with these guys.†   (source)
  • No need to be coy.†   (source)
  • She smiled coyly.†   (source)
  • "They might," she said coyly.†   (source)
  • Don't play coy with me!" she snapped.†   (source)
  • "I think that can be arranged," Ruth said coyly.†   (source)
  • I envisioned myself sashaying up to the bar, giving the bartender a coy Marcie Millar look, then segueing to the topic of Patch.†   (source)
  • At her classroom, she gave me a coy smile.†   (source)
  • There she sat, pretty and slim as a girl, smiling coyly at everyone when a song was dedicated to her.†   (source)
  • The woman closest by made a simpering coy gesture with her hands.†   (source)
  • I could play coy-tell her I'm not sure of my holiday plans, could I let her know?†   (source)
  • The men needed pliancy in their women friends, and she couldn't bring herself to act coy or silly for their sakes.†   (source)
  • IT DOESN'T SEEM he has, though, because on Saturday, I receive a card of a pre-Raphaelite girl looking coyly over her shoulder.†   (source)
  • Nancy, a clothes-conscious girl with a film-star figure, a bespectacled countenance, and a coy, tiptoe way of walking, crossed the lawn and pressed the front-door bell.†   (source)
  • She was kittenish, coy, and syrupy.†   (source)
  • So what's with a freshman having three majors," she asks coyly, having overheard the earlier exchange.†   (source)
  • She shakes her head, pouting coyly.†   (source)
  • I say with a coy little jerk and a leer, to keep my spirits up.†   (source)
  • She had a ritual thing she did, a reflex, not coy but wary and foxy, pulling away from me the more she showed a need, dancing away, eyes bright, her shoulder rounding against my approach.†   (source)
  • He gave me a rather coy smile and added, "It would give me so much pleasure to have you here in Stagsway."†   (source)
  • Kyle and Mike came in, and after saying wonderful, flattering things to me that made me feel coy and blushing, Mike started teasing me and Lew and pretending that we were the obnoxious little brats he used to have to tend.†   (source)
  • She was now awake and smiled coyly at him, batting her thick eyelashes.†   (source)
  • She tosses her head in a coy fashion.†   (source)
  • He saw no sense in being coy with this one.†   (source)
  • She squeezed his arm, flashing him a smile that was both affectionate and coy.†   (source)
  • When pressed on whether this involved discussions with Soviet intelligence officials, Oswald is coy, wondering aloud why anyone would want to discuss spying with a guy like him.†   (source)
  • Laylah's lashes sweep down coyly over her eyes.†   (source)
  • I could not accuse her of being coy or flirtatious or otherwise unfairly competitive.†   (source)
  • She opened the door, aimed a shy, coy smile.†   (source)
  • If you have any other information that would help me, please, now is not the time to be coy.†   (source)
  • Glass gave him a coy smile and returned her lips to his ear.†   (source)
  • Standing in the shade of the Cold Sassy tree, I watched their train pull out, then drove Jack home, turned him into the pasture with Miss Love's horse, filled their feed boxes and the watering trough, fed the chickens, and got the 'Coy family Bible offthe desk in the hall like Mania told me to.†   (source)
  • "Come on, dear," she said coyly.†   (source)
  • Asked if War Admiral would set the pace, Marcela was coy.†   (source)
  • She looked coyly at the ceiling.†   (source)
  • There's nothing coy or suggestive in her tone.†   (source)
  • HONEY (Coy) Oh, he's a pretty nice fella.†   (source)
  • Helen Jean was smiling coyly at one of the Mexicans.†   (source)
  • Her smooth, fair skin and deep brown eyes glowed, and when she caught me looking at her, I got a coy smile that brought out the dimple in her right cheek.†   (source)
  • But your brother is being coy.†   (source)
  • I've hurt your feelings," she said coyly.†   (source)
  • Would its smile, then, be coy, and would it flirt away harmlessly backstage, say good night with a Bourbon Street bow and leave her in peace?†   (source)
  • Rather coyly she turned her back toward him and as he stretched out his great nose to offer his first caress she spun about and nipped him coyly on the shoulder.... My notes on the rest of this incident are fully detailed but I fear they are too technical and full of scientific terminology to deserve a place in this book.†   (source)
  • Tom helped Dessie into the seat and pretended to peek coyly at her ankle.†   (source)
  • The author is an actual woman, married—as the title coyly indicates—to a plumber living in a suburb of Worcester, Mass.†   (source)
  • "Ask your husband if he knows what great birthday this is," Mr. Jerger said, looking at her coyly.†   (source)
  • Then, since the native did not appear, she turned and smiled at them with social coyness, and said: "Excuse me, but you know what these boys are."†   (source)
  • He watched Saphira, noting how she acted with Glaedr, seeming both shy and coy.†   (source)
  • Miss Greene—Dabria—asked with a coy smile, tossing the lollipop in the trash.†   (source)
  • Like a coy, frightened bride who had been married off to a stranger.†   (source)
  • Oh, I've never done anything like you," she said almost coyly.†   (source)
  • A catnap, Aunt Lydia called it, in her coy way.†   (source)
  • She smiles coyly and looks at me, fluttering her eyelashes as she approaches.†   (source)
  • "So what is today?" he said now, smiling coyly.†   (source)
  • She cocked her head in her coyest expression.†   (source)
  • "Now don't be coy, Vera," said Williams.†   (source)
  • She became very coy, and I couldn't get another word out of her.†   (source)
  • "Don't be coy, don't play around with me," I told him.†   (source)
  • "I think you did that the last time I was here," she said coyly.†   (source)
  • You have to get your vitamins and minerals, said Aunt Lydia coyly.†   (source)
  • Only some, mind you, she said coyly, raising her index finger, waggling it at us.†   (source)
  • His tone was coy, like a teacher trying a trick question.†   (source)
  • Then she gave a coy smile and admitted, But not bad at all.†   (source)
  • He needed her to commit, but she was playing coy, covering her bases.†   (source)
  • He was being too coy for this to be anything but horrible news.†   (source)
  • The Voice was always coy with information, but as far as I knew, it had never lied to me.†   (source)
  • "You are getting sleepy, very sleeeeeeeeeeepy," said a coy voice with an Australian accent.†   (source)
  • Well, that's too bad," she said with a coy smile.†   (source)
  • "Will you play the coy deceiver with me?" her aunt said.†   (source)
  • Margaery Tyre11 gave the queen a coy smile.†   (source)
  • She can play, too, though she's not as clever as he is at coy asides and misdirection.†   (source)
  • Has he never been on the far side of "coy"?†   (source)
  • She so startled me by her question that I forgot my usual coyness.†   (source)
  • Davos had come too far with Stannis to play coy now.†   (source)
  • She smiles coyly at me, and ridiculously, I feel myself start to blush.†   (source)
  • She recognized my words from the day before at Noah's house, and she smiled up at me almost coyly.†   (source)
  • "You'll ruin my new clothes," she said coyly, leaning against me.†   (source)
  • I'm thirsty," he said, smiling coyly, as if he were going to live.†   (source)
  • "That was Mami," he said in a coy little voice.†   (source)
  • "Well ....he called her a filthy name," she said, hesitating coyly.†   (source)
  • Its ears were twitching, and it gazed at me coyly from under its forelock.†   (source)
  • Mr. Fleming proves to be loud and acerbic and sometimes coyly wiseguyish.†   (source)
  • "Every last article of clothing," she adds coyly.†   (source)
  • "Don't you?" she said looking at me coyly, tilting her head.†   (source)
  • "Okay, I might need a ride later," Barbara said coyly, before slipping inside.†   (source)
  • Papi smiled coyly, then added, "They're all the craze now.†   (source)
  • "How do you think about me, Will?" she asked coyly, a glint of renewed coquetry in her eyes.†   (source)
  • If I were you, Mr. McLean, I wouldn't just wear sunglasses:' she said coyly.†   (source)
  • The coyly nicknamed explosive Key4 had been developed by Special Forces specifically for opening locked doors with minimal collateral damage.†   (source)
  • He says this coyly, he's fishing, he wants to be complimented, and I know that the serious part of the conversation has come to an end.†   (source)
  • Coyly, as if displaying an ankle, she relates a symptom — agitated breathing, a constriction around the ribs — with a hint of more and richer ones to follow.†   (source)
  • I tried, but he was very coy.†   (source)
  • She smiled coyly.†   (source)
  • "When may we expect the blessed event?" she asked, and I could see I was in for a prolonged dose of coy language from her.†   (source)
  • I wasn't being coy.†   (source)
  • He gave a coy shrug.†   (source)
  • And," she added with a coy smile, "it will give you some creative ideas of things to do with your lady friends."†   (source)
  • Chablis looked coyly at me.†   (source)
  • A coy, inviting pose.†   (source)
  • Then she draws back, aghast at herself, with a gesture of nymph-like coyness, and bends away from him in an attitude of flight; but by this time he is no longer bored.†   (source)
  • Kaltain said coyly.†   (source)
  • She'd brought me a fresh do-dad from The Gingerbread House — an emerald-green crocus planter, only a little bit chipped, in the shape of a coyly smiling girl's head.†   (source)
  • Guess the best thing is to play coy.†   (source)
  • I don't know," she said, playing coy.†   (source)
  • He never played coy with Father.†   (source)
  • "Perhaps," said Dany, with a coy look.†   (source)
  • Where did I dig up "coy"?†   (source)
  • Spare me these coy reproaches, Tyrion.†   (source)
  • A coy smile plays at her lips.†   (source)
  • There is one picture, a lithoprint of two coy, grisly children in pseudo-peasant costume, vaguely Austrian, using a mushroom for an umbrella.†   (source)
  • She rewarded me with a coy smile.†   (source)
  • The scripted words are a coy barb.†   (source)
  • Awww, coy is it?†   (source)
  • Why be coy about it?†   (source)
  • Her smile turned from genuine to coy.†   (source)
  • She coyly shook her head.†   (source)
  • She smiled, looking coy.†   (source)
  • Is he playing coy?†   (source)
  • Her smile is coy.†   (source)
  • Awww, coy, are you?†   (source)
  • She glanced at him over her shoulder as she departed, and the coyness in her smile and the mischief in her eyes and her arched eyebrows, and the steep tilt of her neck, were those of a dancer sending a signal without words.†   (source)
  • Yes, that's true," Cedric says coyly.†   (source)
  • Once Yoyo was sure her mother had drawn a picture of a man's you-know-what; she showed her sisters her find, and with coy, posed faces they inquired of their mother what she was up to.†   (source)
  • "All of you women do so much for us here," he says, grinning coyly, telegraphing some levity, "that I'd take you all out for dinner if I could.†   (source)
  • Those and countless other instances often lead to a skulking, furtive trek for kids ranging from foreign students with language problems to, as Helaine often says coyly, "some kids of the famous."†   (source)
  • She turned away, coy, and walked around the back of the mare, running her hand lightly over its rump.†   (source)
  • He ate with distaste, making no effort to hide it, while Dick said nothing, and Mary made abrupt, unrelated remarks about the weather with that appalling coyness, shaking her earrings, writhing her thin shoulders, ogling Charlie with a conventional flirtatiousness.†   (source)
  • I am not deflected by that odd coyness.†   (source)
  • She was not soft and coy now but awesome to him, outwardly the same but in her mind dark, ancient, and terrible as a stone tower under stars of ice; and if there was something she wanted him to say, there was not enough of him left to say it.†   (source)
  • He watched her with a coy look.†   (source)
  • "Why Luke!" she'd said coyly, well aware that the girlish act repelled him, but not aware until later just why she'd turned it on.†   (source)
  • Charlie looked up, his jaws moving slowly over the food in his mouth, his eyes alert and bright; it was the tone of Mary's voice when she spoke to the native that jarred on him: she was speaking to him with exactly the same flirtatious coyness with which she had spoken to himself.†   (source)
  • There was no feminine vacillation, no coyness of obvious desire and intention to succumb at last.†   (source)
  • A coy giggle was the only response they got.†   (source)
  • "It is not very good," he explained coyly.†   (source)
  • AMANDA [coyly smiling, shaking her girlish ringlets]: Well, well, well, so this is Mr. O'Connor.†   (source)
  • He settled his hind quarters coyly, and lay still, looking up.†   (source)
  • "Christmas is coming," warned Sissy coyly.†   (source)
  • "I know, Martie," she answered coyly, her lips pouted, "I know we just got here, but I want to go.†   (source)
  • His heavy legs bulged knottily below a coy fringe of drawer-ruffles.†   (source)
  • He throttled the coy jerking of her foot, rested it on his knee.†   (source)
  • "Sir Grummore," he said coyly, "has observed a phenomenon, by Jove!"†   (source)
  • Coy-kittenish, she talked down at him, slogged against the creaking stair rail.†   (source)
  • Eugene shuddered, and looked up at Gant's white emblem with coy pride.†   (source)
  • "Whew!" she cried out coyly, noticing that Eugene was staring.†   (source)
  • She thrust her small feet out, coyly turning the toes in.†   (source)
  • McGuire shielded his bloated face coyly with his hand.†   (source)
  • While we had been dancing she had printed her initials and Swede's on the wall with lipstick and was coyly waiting for him to notice.†   (source)
  • "You've got to look after Barnard," he told Miss Brinklow, half jocularly, half meaning it; and she answered with the coyness of an eagle: "I'll do my best, but you know, I've never been roped before."†   (source)
  • It represented a baby sprawled on its stomach, dimpled rear forward, peeking coyly over its shoulder.†   (source)
  • He watched the expression of coyness on her face change to one of amazement as she counted the bills.†   (source)
  • I can imagine her engineering that courtship, supplying Judith and Bon with opportunities for trysts and pledges with a coy and unflagging ubiquity which they must have tried in vain to evade and escape, Judith with annoyed yet still serene concern, Bon with that sardonic and surprised distaste which seems to have been the ordinary manifestation of the impenetrable and shadowy character.†   (source)
  • There was a system of coy evasion.†   (source)
  • She yielded her kisses with the coy and frigid modesty of the provincial harlot, turning her mouth away.†   (source)
  • The usual strong color of the flesh was gone and on the cheeks there was only the coy tint of the mortician's art.†   (source)
  • I will do anything he might ask me to do and that is why he will never ask me to do anything that I consider dishonorable— so that (maybe he even kissed her that time, the first time she had ever been kissed maybe and she too innocent to be coy or modest or even to know that she had been temporised with, maybe afterward just looking at him with a kind of peaceful and blank surprise at the fact that your sweetheart apparently kissed you the first time like your brother would—provided of course that your brother ever thought of, could be brought to, kissing you on the mouth)—so that when the two days were up and he was gone again and Ellen shrieking at her, 'What?†   (source)
  • Long after the display had ceased the spectacle was bright before our eyes and the night sky was suddenly gentle and demure with the coy twinkle of pale stars.†   (source)
  • We had got along well at the cottage party and driving back to town she had remarked coyly, "Angie, let's you and me get together some night when the fellows are taking out their other girls!"†   (source)
  • " Margie opened her purse and patted her hair in the mirror, remarking coyly, "I know you two aren't going to mind being left alone .... " Fitz looked at his watch again and stammered apologetically, "It's just a little after nine o'clock now but she has to be in early and if you kids don't care ...well ...you know how it is.†   (source)
  • And he, simulating boyish, inarticulate coyness, would say: "Gosh, Miss Edith, I didn't mean to do nothin'."†   (source)
  • They talked from couch to couch, or walked pot-belliedly about, sashed coyly with bath towels—malarial Southerners with malarial drawls, paunch-eyed alcoholics, purple-skinned gamblers, and broken down prize-fighters.†   (source)
  • Now he had an air of daring and of coyness.†   (source)
  • I apologize for mentioning my own pale, coy, mistrustful fancy in the same breath with it.†   (source)
  • She tossed her head and flicked her eyes and repeated her coyest smile.†   (source)
  • Clutton and Potter sat on each side of her, and everyone knew that neither had found her unduly coy.†   (source)
  • "No," she said coyly, "but what can I do?"†   (source)
  • "Well, you know," said Mr. M'Coy, "isn't the photograph wonderful when you come to think of it?"†   (source)
  • Her voice was appealing without being coy.†   (source)
  • Racks of magazines, and pictures of coy fat prostitutes in striped bathing-suits.†   (source)
  • He thought her smile affected, and the coy sprightliness of her manner irritated him.†   (source)
  • Then, as though her heart had said, "Is coyness longer necessary?†   (source)
  • On the instant, the shewolf's coyness and playfulness disappeared.†   (source)
  • He tried to sniff noses with her, but she retreated playfully and coyly.†   (source)
  • "O, don't forget the candle, Tom," said Mr. M'Coy, "whatever you do."†   (source)
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