coward

From Middle English coward, from Old French coart, cuard ( > French couard), from coue (“tail”), coe + -ard (pejorative agent noun suffix); coue, coe is in turn from Latin cauda. The reference seems to be to an animal “turning tail”, or having its tail between its legs, especially a dog. Compare the expression tail between one's legs. Unrelated to English cower. Displaced native Old English earg (survived in northern dialect English argh).

• (UK) enPR: kou'əd, IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊəd/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US) enPR: kou'ərd, IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊɚd/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• Hyphenation: co‧ward
• Homophone: cowered

coward (plural cowards)

1. A person who lacks courage.
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Ivlivs Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies, London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, act II, scene ii, page 117, column 1:

     Cowards dye many times before their deaths, / The valiant neuer taſte of death but once: […]

   • 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.

• chicken
• scaredy pants
• yellowbelly
• baby
• big baby
• See also Thesaurus:coward

coward (comparative more coward, superlative most coward)

A lion coward.

1. Cowardly.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 17, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     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.

   • c. 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, 2nd edition, London: Jacob Tonson, page 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.

coward (third-person singular simple present cowards, present participle cowarding, simple past and past participle cowarded)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To intimidate.
   • 1820, 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 in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Borrowed from Old French coart; equivalent to Old French coe (“tail”) +‎ -ard. Compare taylarde.

• couard, couward, cowart, cowerde, coword, cuward, kowarde

• IPA^(key): /ˈkuːard/, /ˈkɔu̯ard/

coward

1. coward, knave
2. (rare) idiot, simpleton

• cowardie
• cowardise
• cowardly
• cowardnesse

• English: coward
• Scots: cooart, coort

• “cǒuard, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

coward

1. cowardly
2. (rare) stupid

• English: coward

• “cǒuard, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

coward

1. Alternative form of couherde