Borrowed into late Middle English from Old French temoros, from Medieval Latin timorosus, from Latin timor, from timeō.

• IPA: /ˈtɪməɹəs/, /ˈtɪmɹəs/

timorous

1. Fearful; afraid; timid.
   • 1534 (date written; published 1553), Thomas More, “A Dyalogue of Comforte agaynste Tribulacyon, […]. XVI. Of Hym that were Moued to Kyl Himself by Illusion of the Dyuel, which He Rekened for a Reuelation.”, in Wyllyam Rastell [i.e., William Rastell], editor, The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, […], London: […] Iohn Cawod, Iohn Waly, and Richarde Tottell, published 30 April 1557, →OCLC ↗, pages 1195–1196 ↗:

     He [the Devil] marketh well […] mennes complexions within thẽ [them], health, or ſicknes, good humours or badde, by which they be light hearted or lumpiſh, ſtrong hearted, or faynt & fieble of ſpirite, bolde and hardy, or timorous and fearefull of courage.

   • 1786, Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, volume I, Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] John Wilson, →OCLC ↗; reprinted Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] James M‘Kie, 1867, →OCLC ↗:

     Wee sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie, / Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!

   • 1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Days of Imprisonment”, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC ↗, book II (The Earth under the Martians), page 219 ↗:

     [H]e was one of those weak creatures full of a shifty cunning - who face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves, void of pride, timorous, anæmic, hateful souls.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC ↗:

     He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly.

   • 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC ↗:

     The suspect was a man of forty, with a grey, timorous face, dressed only in a ragged longyi kilted to the knee, beneath which his lank, curved shins were specked with tick-bites.

• (fearful) fearful, shy, timid

• (antonym(s) of “fearful”): daredevil, dauntless, reckless, untimorous

• timorsome

• French: timoré, timorée, craintif, craintive
• German: scheu, ängstlich
• Italian: timido
• Russian: боязливый
• Spanish: tímido, espantadizo, timorato