shy vs third string

shy

adj
  • Short, insufficient or less than. 

  • Easily frightened; timid. 

  • Embarrassed. 

  • Cautious; wary; suspicious. 

  • Reserved; disinclined to familiar approach. 

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. 

third string

adj
  • Of a decidedly lower quality or condition. 

noun
  • A unit of players that plays behind the first and second strings; a junior varsity team. 

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