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say it: koy
coy is an adjective meaning "affectedly modest or shy especially in a playful or provocative way". It is pronounced /ˈkɔɪ/ — koy. It carries 3 recorded senses.
affectedly modest or shy especially in a playful or provocative way
showing marked and often playful or irritating evasiveness or reluctance to make a definite or committing statement
“a politician coy about his intentions”
modestly or warily rejecting approaches or overtures
“like a wild young colt, very inquisitive but very coy and not to be easily cajoled”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for coy come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.