How to Use coy in a Sentence

coy

adjective
  • He gave a coy answer.
  • I didn't like her coy manner.
  • Prince William has even played it coy.
    — Meg Walters, InStyle, 3 June 2026
  • Some workers were a bit more coy.
    — ABC News, 4 May 2026
  • Maybe the aliens are coy and want to stay hidden.
    — Matthew Hutson, New Yorker, 7 Sep. 2025
  • To play it coy and never give too much away.
    — Meg Walters, InStyle, 30 Jan. 2026
  • Synth-flecked and funky, neither the song nor the video play coy.
    — Brenna Ehrlich, Rolling Stone, 11 May 2026
  • There was a coy smile [on this agent’s face], knowing he got caught.
    — Marlene Lenthang, NBC News, 4 Apr. 2024
  • There’s no point trying to be coy or cryptic about this stuff.
    — Hanif Abdurraqib, New Yorker, 31 May 2026
  • Witherspoon plays it a bit more coy.
    — Clare Mulroy, USA Today, 11 Oct. 2025
  • Casamigos has been very coy about its founders’ views on its prevalence in rap.
    — Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 5 Aug. 2022
  • Stokes acts coy in an interview.
    — Emily Kelleher, InStyle, 7 Jan. 2026
  • Lewis was coy last week when he was asked which quarterback would run the first play.
    — Kirk Kenney, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Mar. 2024
  • Levy plays coy about whether Evans, 22, will be back as Hunter.
    — Julia Moore, PEOPLE, 20 May 2026
  • Kershaw has been coy about whether or not this will be his final season.
    — Dan Freedman, Forbes.com, 1 Sep. 2025
  • Agrawal was none too coy about this in his public statements.
    — Abram Brown, Forbes, 12 Apr. 2022
  • And vendors are not always coy about the true purpose.
    — Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic, 23 Dec. 2025
  • You're supposed to be a little coy and give a little, not too much.
    — Michael Gioia, Peoplemag, 17 Oct. 2022
  • Ernaux’s works aren’t coy or glancing; they’ve been sharpened to a point.
    — Tobi Haslett, Harper's Magazine, 18 Sep. 2023
  • Wang isn’t coy about Meta’s ambitions.
    — Eva Roytburg, Fortune, 19 Sep. 2025
  • When asked whether that request sparked their feud, the 56-year-old remained coy.
    — Amber Corrine, VIBE.com, 3 Oct. 2025
  • Mike Daniels was coy with the Browns staff last week on where his next stop was on his free-agent tour.
    — Albert Breer, SI.com, 29 July 2019
  • Manchin has so far been coy about his plans for the 2024 election cycle.
    — Kelsey Walsh, ABC News, 18 July 2023
  • Officials in other states are not being so coy.
    — Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 13 Mar. 2026
  • Bright red mushrooms dot the forest floor, coy and dangerous.
    — WIRED, 2 Sep. 2022
  • Found footage Engelhardt plays coy on whether this game fits in with the canon of the franchise.
    — Nick Romano, EW.com, 20 Aug. 2019
  • Bassetti was also coy when asked the same question.
    — Jake Kanter, Deadline, 18 Sep. 2025
  • In terms of the next steps, Cregger was playing it coy in the days ahead of the movie’s opening.
    — Pamela McClintock, HollywoodReporter, 12 Aug. 2025
  • Hospitals were somewhat coy over their use of AI.
    — Bob Herman, STAT, 20 Jan. 2026
  • Muschietti, who has been on the Flash press tour, has been coy about his connection.
    — Aaron Couch, The Hollywood Reporter, 15 June 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'coy.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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