shyyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[shy 词源字典]
shy: Shy ‘timid, reserved’ [OE] goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *skeukhwaz ‘afraid’ (source also of English eschew and skew). It is generally assumed that shy ‘throw’ [18] must have come from it, but the exact nature of the relationship between the two words is not clear. The original application of the verb seems to have been specifically to the throwing of sticks at chickens, and it has been suggested, not altogether convincingly, that its use alludes to the notion of a ‘shy’ cockerel that refuses to fight (there was an 18th- and early 19th-century slang term shy-cock which meant ‘cowardly person’).
=> eschew, skew[shy etymology, shy origin, 英语词源]
shy (adj.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
late Old English sceoh "timid, easily startled," from Proto-Germanic *skeukh(w)az "afraid" (cognates: Middle Low German schüwe, Dutch schuw, German scheu "shy;" Old High German sciuhen, German scheuchen "to scare away"). Uncertain cognates outside Germanic, unless in Old Church Slavonic shchuti "to hunt, incite." Italian schivare "to avoid," Old French eschiver "to shun" are Germanic loan-words. Meaning "lacking, short of" is from 1895, American English gambling slang. Related: Shyly; shyness.
shy (v.1)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
"to throw (a missile) with a jerk or toss," 1787, colloquial, of unknown origin and uncertain connection to shy (adj.). Related: Shied; shying.
shy (v.2)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
"to recoil," 1640s, from shy (adj.). Related: Shied; shying.