COWARD

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• COWARD (noun)
  The noun COWARD has 2 senses:

1. a person who shows fear or timidity

2. English dramatist and actor and composer noted for his witty and sophisticated comedies (1899-1973)

  Familiarity information: COWARD used as a noun is rare.

• COWARD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who shows fear or timidity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("coward" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "coward"):

cur (a cowardly and despicable person)

dastard (a despicable coward)

craven; poltroon; recreant (an abject coward)

quaker; trembler (one who quakes and trembles with (or as with) fear)

shrinking violet; shy person (someone who shrinks from familiarity with others)

milksop; Milquetoast; pansy; pantywaist; sissy (a timid man or boy considered childish or unassertive)

hesitater; hesitator; vacillator; waverer (one who hesitates (usually out of fear))

Derivation:

cow (subdue, restrain, or overcome by affecting with a feeling of awe; frighten (as with threats))

cowardly (lacking courage; ignobly timid and faint-hearted)

cower (show submission or fear)

Sense 2

Meaning:

English dramatist and actor and composer noted for his witty and sophisticated comedies (1899-1973)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Coward; Noel Coward; Sir Noel Pierce Coward

Instance hypernyms:

actor; histrion; player; role player; thespian (a theatrical performer)

composer (someone who composes music as a profession)

dramatist; playwright (someone who writes plays)

 Context examples 

You coward!’ Those were scraps of her conversation, ending in a sudden dreadful cry in the man’s voice, with a crash, and a piercing scream from the woman.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"You are nothing but a big coward."

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

Also, thy people do call thee Negore, the Coward.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Beauty Smith was known far and wide as the weakest of weak-kneed and snivelling cowards.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

And yet it was a coward's blow, and one to stir the blood and loose the tongue of the most peaceful.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was a coward, afraid to strike me because I had not quailed sufficiently in advance; so he chose a new way to intimidate me.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He was a coward, from head to foot; and showed his dastardly nature through his sullenness and mortification, as much as at any time of his mean life.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)