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Glite Dictionary
to fight shy of

to fight shy of

7.7
To avoid doing something because you do not want to try it
  • phrasal verb
  • UK
translation icon : evitar
  • She tends to fight shy of confrontation, preferring to avoid arguments altogether.

Examples

  • Men of his type usually fight shy of marriage.

    Danger Signal (1945)

  • The crudeness of the question startled him: the word was one that women of his class fought shy of, even when their talk flitted closest about the topic.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • And after a year and a half of listening to stories, the children now fight shy of their fear and want to become storytellers themselves.

    Blog text (7)

  • "Now we all fight shy of recognizing the religious necessity of catastrophe, but these last years should have taught us better courage.

    Academic text (2017)

  • Many people fight shy of public speaking because they fear being judged.

  • Despite his talent, he fights shy of applying for the lead role in the play.

Synonyms

to shy away from
vsto fight shy of
41 4.6

Avoid doing something because you feel afraid or unsure

is reluctant to be involved more generally, not only avoiding difficult tasks
to shy
vsto fight shy of
31 7.2

To move back suddenly because of fear or surprise

is about reluctance to get involved rather than sudden physical retreat

Antonyms

to engage
676 3.4

To take part in an activity

embrace
20 3.4

A warm, willing acceptance of someone or an idea

How Willing

to hesitate
318 2.5
to fight shy of
  • UK
7.7
to shun
26 4.6
to refuse
4 9.2

Surface Forms

fight shy of infinitive
fighting shy of present participle
fights shy of third person singular
fought shy of past
fought shy of past participle

Morphology

fight + shy + of

The avoidance sense is partly signaled by 'shy of' (reluctant about), so a learner who knows 'shy' and 'of' could infer the general idea of reluctance. However, the verb 'fight' is not compositionally consistent with passive avoidance and gives a metaphorical/colloquial flavour that is not fully predictable from the parts, so prior exposure to the collocation is helpful.

Etymology

Fight shy of may come from the image of an animal that shies — it suddenly pulls back from something scary. So when someone fights shy of doing something, they pull away and 'avoid' it or 'are unwilling' to try.