half-shy

She gave him a look half-shy, half-smiling; and Hilary thought:

Maid in Waiting 2004

Her lips were warm, sweet with a startled half-shy response; then she freed herself quietly.

Beast Master's Circus Norton, Andre 2004

Hetty dropped the prettiest little curtsy, and stole a half-shy, half-coquettish glance at him as she said,

Adam Bede 2004

While I watched his concentrated efforts with astonishment he threw at me one or two perplexed, half-shy glances.

Falk, by Joseph Conrad 2004

Nokes first walked off, sloping out from the veranda in a half-shy, half-cunning manner, looking nowhither, and saying a word to no one.

Harry Heathcote of Gangoil 2004

Up came the little girl, with her hand out, and a half-shy, half-merry look in her blue eyes, as she said, inquiringly, "This is Tom, is n't it?"

An Old-Fashioned Girl 1950

He grinned at the children, holding his face sideways as if half-shy.

The Rubadub Mystery Blyton, Enid, 1898?-1968 1952

She looked at him curiously, a faint half-shy smile on her face.

The Lani People 1951

She had lovely eyes, dark, smoky-blue under black lashes, and when they held a gentle, half-shy, half-proud invitation, as they did then, they were very unsettling eyes ....

The Palace of Darkened Windows Mary Hastings Bradley

We drive in from Mr. Lyman's beautiful seat at Waltham (unique at that day in its stately swans and half-shy, half-familiar deer) with John Adams, who tells us that Dr. Priestley looked on the French monarchy as the tenth horn of the Beast in Revelations, -- a horn that has set more sober wits dancing than that of Huon of Bordeaux.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 Various