adjective
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full of shadows; dark; shady
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resembling a shadow in faintness; vague
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illusory or imaginary
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mysterious or secretive
a shadowy underworld figure
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of shadowy
First recorded in 1325–75, shadowy is from the Middle English word shadewy. See shadow, -y 1
Explanation
The adjective shadowy is good for describing things that are mysterious or hard to see, like a dim figure in the fog or the social rules of a typical middle school. Indistinct or faint objects are shadowy, whether they're distant people standing in a dark alley or birds you can barely see against the choppy surface of the ocean. You can also describe something that's ghostly or unreal as shadowy. A shadowy room or a shadowy figure brushing past you would both be insubstantial and vaguely spooky. The root of shadowy is the Old English word sceadu, "shade, shadow, or darkness."
Vocabulary lists containing shadowy
"Ode to the Table" by Pablo Neruda
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The One and Only Ivan
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The Wild Robot
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Lobbying remains dogged by a reputation as a shadowy trade.
From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026
Thanks to several shadowy backers, three days later, according to my source inside the courthouse, on Saturday, Aug. 8, at 12:35 p.m.,
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
An unbreakable high school cheerleader, she embraced the role of hero, facing pushback from a shadowy government group, serial killers and a twisted family dynamic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
In his desire to portray Adrian’s immersion in parasocial worlds filled with shadowy, destructive figures, McElwee’s own perspective was equally one-sided.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026
Unlike the shadowy and dark First World, tiny islands where land beings could walk dotted the vast sheet of water.
From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young
Shadowy organizations lurk in the shadows of other shadowier organizations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 21, 2025
If that weren’t enough, I was just introduced to an even shadowier cabal of villains who are controlling the people who control the colonies.
From The Verge ● Jul. 26, 2022
Angleton had, in effect, weaponized this strategy of interpretation—convinced that any apparently straightforward reference in the world in fact meant something shadowier than it seemed to.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 26, 2019
Toward the end of the book, we find out where the narrator has been imprisoned, who the shadowy Commandant is, and why everyone is afraid of an even shadowier character known as the Commissar.
From New York Times ● Aug. 27, 2015
The anarchist and critic Félix Fénéon, one of the shadowiest mavericks of turn-of-the-century France, was sometimes described by his artist friends as a Yankee—a term intended to give him a dangerous gloss of American exoticism.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 3, 2014
Had he had the shadowiest suspicion of my plans, of the true inwardness of the Croffut-Dominick movement, he would as readily have offered me his own head.
From The Plum Tree by E. M. Ashe
The characters are rather dim and indistinct, the shadowiest of all being Emma, who has no personality at all, and is a mere complement to the immaculate Edmund's happiness.
From The Tale of Terror A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead
The higher objects of Government were, if at all, outlined in the shadowiest form in his imagination.
From Ginx's Baby: his birth and other misfortunes; a satire by Edward Jenkins
Lennox remains for us the shadowiest of personalities, but his disappearance, implying abandonment of the woman he had compromised, tells against him.
From Lola Montez An Adventuress of the 'Forties by Edmund B. d'Auvergne
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
