Etymology

craven

C3R1A1V4E1N1

Today it means: Unwilling to fight; lacking even the rudiments of courage; extremely cowardly. Full definition →

Middle English cravant ← Old French cravanté
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craven · adjective, noun, verb1

  1. Old French · derived fromcravanté“defeated”
  2. Middle English · inherited fromcravant
  3. English todaycraven

From Middle English cravant, either borrowed from Old French cravanté (“defeated”), past participle of cravanter (ultimately from Latin crepare), or a modification of creaunt (“defeated”) after craven (“to crave”).

Craven · proper noun2

From Proto-Brythonic; equivalent to Welsh craf (“garlic”) + the suffix -an. Compare Cremona.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.