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GERMAN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

scheuen.

to shy, to balk at (to physically refuse going near a source of fear, especially of animals)

7 characters1 syllables approx.Deutsch language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈʃɔɪ̯ən/
  1. to shy, to balk at (to physically refuse going near a source of fear, especially of animals)

    intransitive · weak
    Das Pferd scheut vor dem Hindernis.
  2. to avoid, to balk at (an act or situation, especially over a longer time period)

    transitive · weak
    keine Mühe scheuen
    Der Junge ist einfach nur faul, er scheut die Arbeit, wo er nur kann.
  3. to be afraid of, to shrink from, to shy away from

    reflexive · weak
    Wir scheuen uns davor, ihm Unannehmlichkeiten zu bereiten.
Where this word comes from

From Middle High German schiuhen, from Old High German sciuhen, from Proto-West Germanic *skiuhan, from the Proto-Germanic adjective *skiuhaz (“shy”). By surface analysis, scheu + -en. Doublet of scheuchen. Compare Dutch schuwen.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.