Word of the Day

Saturday, January 17, 2004

timorous

\TIM-uhr-uhs\ , adjective;

Full of apprehensiveness; timid; fearful.

Indicating, or caused by, fear.

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Quotes:

Girls, allegedly so timorous and lacking in confidence, now outnumber boys in student government, in honor societies, on school newspapers, and even in debating clubs.

-- Christina Hoff Sommers, The War Against Boys

Some men by the unalterable frame of their constitutions, are stout, others timorous, some confident, others modest.

-- John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education

The way we are living,
timorous or bold,
will have been our life.

-- Seamus Heaney, "Elegy",

Origin:

The source of timorous is Latin timor, "fear."