Gunshy

//ˈɡʌn.ʃaɪ//

"Gunshy" in a Sentence (4 examples)

But very few dogs become gunshy if they are introduced to the bang while they are overcome with the delight of chasing game, particularly if the trainer begins with a light noise and works up to louder noises in easy stages

After his last suggestion was laughed at by his colleagues, he was gunshy about making another suggestion.

However, some people are gun-shy about like and engage in the hoity toity lingo that's called “hypercorrection.”

You're gun shy / So am I / I understand with what you've been through

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.