coward
see also: Coward
Pronunciation
  • (British) enPR: kou'əd, IPA: /ˈkaʊəd/
  • (America) enPR: kou'ərd, IPA: /ˈkaʊɚd/
Noun

coward (plural cowards)

  1. A person who lacks courage.
    • 1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part II Chapter IV, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
      He tortured himself to find out how he could make his declaration to her, and always halting between the fear of displeasing her and the shame of being such a coward, he wept with discouragement and desire. Then he took energetic resolutions, wrote letters that he tore up, put it off to times that he again deferred.
Synonyms Translations Adjective

coward

  1. Cowardly.
    • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 17, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:
      It is a coward and servile humour, for a man to disguise and hide himselfe under a maske, and not dare to shew himselfe as he is.
    • circa 1605 William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act II, Scene 4,
      He rais’d the house with loud and coward cries.
    • 1709, Matthew Prior, “Celia to Damon” in Poems on Several Occasions, London: Jacob Tonson, 2nd edition, p. 89,
      Invading Fears repel my Coward Joy;
      And Ills foreseen the pleasant Bliss destroy.
  2. (heraldry, of a lion) Borne in the escutcheon with his tail doubled between his legs.
Verb

coward (cowards, present participle cowarding; past and past participle cowarded)

  1. (transitive, obsolete) To intimidate.
    • , John Chalkhill, Thealma and Clearchus
      The first he coped with was their captain, whom / His sword sent headless to seek out a tomb. / This cowarded the valour of the rest, […]

Coward
Proper noun
  1. Surname



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