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cowering

[kou-er]

verb (used without object)

to crouch, as in fear or shame.

Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English couren; cognate with Norwegian, Swedish kūra, Middle Low German kūren, German kauern

Related forms

cow·er·ing·ly, adverb

Synonyms
cringe, recoil, flinch, quail.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Cowering is always a great word to know.

So is slumgullion. Does it mean:

a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

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Example Sentences

Both houses appear to be cowering before the rich and powerful liquor lobby.

Yet those expecting private-equity executives to be cowering in fear of retribution will be disappointed.

Presiding over the cowering crowd was a fat police commander with a thick mustache and pocked face.

EXPAND

Both houses appear to be cowering before the rich and powerful liquor lobby.

Yet those expecting private-equity executives to be cowering in fear of retribution will be disappointed.

Presiding over the cowering crowd was a fat police commander with a thick mustache and pocked face.

Three men in bleached garments are cowering on the bare floor.

Cameron went to sleep with a fever and dreamed that he saw a robot clawing its way toward a cowering woman.

Their betrayal cut so deep that it has left me anxious and cowering to this day.

But many of the delegates spent their time cowering in the conference centre.

He will go and hide, in a cowering position, behind the toilet.

The photos included scenes of naked detainees stacked in a pyramid and other inmates cowering in front of snarling dogs.

Liberia's few, and pretty dubious, opposition politicians are mostly cowering in exile.

Students were dropping from upper-story windows, cowering under desks, scrambling for cover or freezing where they stood.

There is an element of cowering before angry voters.

One day, he finds a madwoman cowering behind his house.

He is surrounded by more figures tied to poles, and others cowering on the ground.

They loved nothing more than hunting woodchucks, and furiously digging after chipmunks and mice cowering in stone walls.

Groucho preferred her to his often cowering and resentful children.

They were found cowering under boxes in a corner an hour later.

Rust-ravaged balconies give way all too willingly when you're cowering behind them for.

And the last scene of his cowering surrender to a nervous collapse is truly sad.

Think-tanks rain studies and reports down on a nation cowering from the overload of information.

But the sequel was so brutal, it left many players whimpering and cowering in a dark corner.

Sordi's funny fellow cowering pop-eyed in the back of the bus.

The only people seen in the village are women, children, the elderly and the disabled cowering in fear and uncertainty.

Someone will decide to experiment with matches or lock the door of a dark closet and abandon the sister cowering inside.

Mamet to trick himself into confronting his cowering inner wimp and dragging this poor sniveling creature into the spotlight.

Past the resentful older houses tinged green with envy, cowering in their private driveways among their private rubber trees.

The threatening husband demands roughhouse affection from his cowering wife.

COLLAPSE

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

cower

c.1300, probably from M.L.G. *kuren "lie in wait," or similar Scand. words meaning "to squat" and "to doze." Thus unrelated to coward.

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Related Words

frightened

funk

Matching Quote

"Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institutions,—such call I good books."

-Henry David Thoreau

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