COWARDICE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does cowardice mean? 

• COWARDICE (noun)
  The noun COWARDICE has 1 sense:

1. the trait of lacking courage

  Familiarity information: COWARDICE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COWARDICE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The trait of lacking courage

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

cowardice; cowardliness

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

spirit (a fundamental emotional and activating principle determining one's character)

Attribute:

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

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

cravenness (meanspirited cowardice)

fearfulness (the trait of being afraid)

dastardliness (despicable cowardice)

Antonym:

courage (a quality of spirit that enables you to face danger or pain without showing fear)

 Context examples 

On the other hand, I was brought up with a horror of cowardice and with a terror of such a stigma.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As the period fixed for our marriage drew nearer, whether from cowardice or a prophetic feeling, I felt my heart sink within me.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener; and so when each had said his say, my mother made them a speech.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It was also serious, for I learned that he was capable of using it, that under all his cowardice there was a courage of cowardice, like mine, that would impel him to do the very thing his whole nature protested against doing and was afraid of doing.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I could plainly discover whence one family derives a long chin; why a second has abounded with knaves for two generations, and fools for two more; why a third happened to be crack-brained, and a fourth to be sharpers; whence it came, what Polydore Virgil says of a certain great house, Nec vir fortis, nec foemina casta; how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice, grew to be characteristics by which certain families are distinguished as much as by their coats of arms; who first brought the pox into a noble house, which has lineally descended scrofulous tumours to their posterity.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

How I cursed the cowardice of the neighbours; how I blamed my poor mother for her honesty and her greed, for her past foolhardiness and present weakness!

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

A general confessed, in my presence, that he got a victory purely by the force of cowardice and ill conduct; and an admiral, that, for want of proper intelligence, he beat the enemy, to whom he intended to betray the fleet.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It may therefore be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion, but when I see a fellow creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)