knowing vs shy

knowing

adj
  • Shrewd or showing clever awareness; discerning. 

  • The ability to know something without being taught. 

  • Suggestive of private knowledge or understanding. 

  • Possessing knowledge or understanding; knowledgeable, intelligent. 

  • Deliberate, wilful. 

  • Demonstrating knowledge of what is in fashion; stylish, chic. 

prep
  • Given my knowledge about someone or something. 

noun
  • The act or condition of having knowledge. 

shy

adj
  • Cautious; wary; suspicious. 

  • Easily frightened; timid. 

  • Embarrassed. 

  • Reserved; disinclined to familiar approach. 

  • Short, insufficient or less than. 

noun
  • In the Eton College wall game, a point scored by lifting the ball against the wall in the calx. 

  • In soccer, a throw-in from the sidelines, using two hands above the head. In shinty, the act of tossing the ball above the head and hitting it with the shaft of the caman to bring it back into play after it has been hit out of the field. 

  • An act of throwing. 

  • A place for throwing. 

  • A sudden start aside, as by a horse. 

verb
  • To avoid due to caution, embarrassment or timidness. 

  • (transitive) or (intransitive) To throw a ball with two hands above the head, especially when it has crossed the side lines in a football (soccer) match. To hit the ball back into play from the sidelines in a shinty match. 

  • To jump back in fear. 

  • To throw sideways with a jerk; to fling. 

How often have the words knowing and shy occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )