Nearby Words

cowardly

[kou-erd-lee] Origin

cow·ard·ly

[kou-erd-lee]
adjective
1.
lacking courage; contemptibly timid.
2.
characteristic of or befitting a coward; despicably mean, covert, or unprincipled: a cowardly attack on a weak, defenseless man.
adverb
3.
like a coward.

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Cowardly is always a great word to know.
So is zedonk. Does it mean:
the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

Origin:
1275–1325; Middle English (adv.); see coward, -ly

cow·ard·li·ness, noun


1. craven, poltroon, dastardly, pusillanimous, fainthearted, white-livered, lily-livered, chicken-hearted, fearful, afraid, scared. Cowardly, timid, timorous refer to a lack of courage or self-confidence. Cowardly means weakly or basely fearful in the presence of danger: The cowardly wretch deserted his comrades in battle. Timid means lacking in boldness or self-confidence even when there is no danger present: a timid person who stood in the way of his own advancement. Timorous suggests a timidity based on an exaggeration of dangers or on an imaginary creation of dangers: timorous as a mouse.


1. brave.

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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World English Dictionary
cowardly (ˈkaʊədlɪ)
 
adj
of or characteristic of a coward; lacking courage
 
'cowardliness
 
n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

cowardly
early 14c. (adv.); 1550s (adj.), from coward (q.v.). The adv. is much older than the adj.
EXPAND
"Yit had I levir do what I may Than here to dye thus cowerdelye" ["Le Morte d'Arthur," c.1450]
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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