coward

What it means

1. A person who lacks courage.

   Near-synonyms: big baby, baby

   2 more examples

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

   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

   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.

   Synonyms: chicken, pullet, scaredy pants, yellowbelly, big baby, baby, bottler, caitiff

In a sentence

Near-synonyms: big baby, baby

Where it comes from

1. Latincauda
2. Old Frenchcoart
3. Middle Englishcoward
4. Englishcoward

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. Displaced native Old English earg (surviving in northern dialect English argh). Unrelated to cower, which is of Germanic origin.