coward

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French coart, cuard ( > French couard), from coe (“tail”) + -ard (pejorative agent noun suffix); [Term?] (“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. Unrelated to cower.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊəd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊɚd/
• Hyphenation: co‧ward
• Homophone: cowered

Noun

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 606515358, 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.

Adjective

coward (comparative more coward, superlative most coward)

1. Cowardly.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes, […], printed at London: […] Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:
     , II.17:

     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, London: Jacob Tonson, 2nd edition, p. 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.

References

• Coward in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.