COWARDLY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does cowardly mean? 

• COWARDLY (adjective)
  The adjective COWARDLY has 1 sense:

1. lacking courage; ignobly timid and faint-hearted

  Familiarity information: COWARDLY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COWARDLY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lacking courage; ignobly timid and faint-hearted

Synonyms:

cowardly; fearful

Context example:

cowardly dogs, ye will not aid me then

Similar:

caitiff (despicably mean and cowardly)

chicken; chickenhearted; lily-livered; white-livered; yellow; yellow-bellied (easily frightened)

craven; recreant (lacking even the rudiments of courage; abjectly fearful)

dastard; dastardly (despicably cowardly)

faint; faint-hearted; fainthearted; timid (lacking conviction or boldness or courage)

funky (in a state of cowardly fright)

poltroon (characterized by complete cowardliness)

poor-spirited; pusillanimous; unmanly (lacking in courage and manly strength and resolution; contemptibly fearful)

Also:

afraid (filled with fear or apprehension)

timid (showing fear and lack of confidence)

ignoble (completely lacking nobility in character or quality or purpose)

Attribute:

cowardice; cowardliness (the trait of lacking courage)

Antonym:

brave (possessing or displaying courage; able to face and deal with danger or fear without flinching)

Derivation:

coward (a person who shows fear or timidity)

cowardliness (the trait of lacking courage)

 Context examples 

But she would not make up her fire; that would seem cowardly, as if she wished for the protection of light after she were in bed.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

It was cowardly, but what else could I do?

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

“Ah, the cowardly dogs! Follow me, gentlemen! Too late! too late! by the living Jingo!”

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

I've seen his top-sails with these eyes, off Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rum-puncheon that I sailed with put back—put back, sir, into Port of Spain.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

"The Lion was a very good comrade for one so cowardly. But let us go on."

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

His cowardly rages made them dread a shot in the back or poison in their coffee.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

They are strong and hardy, but of a cowardly spirit, and, by consequence, insolent, abject, and cruel.

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

But merchants and traders are cowardly rulers at best; they grunt and grub all their days in the trough of money-getting, and I have swung back to aristocracy, if you please.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

For a minute a wild desire to run away possessed her, but that was cowardly, and the girls would laugh at her, so she resolved to stay and get out of the scrape as she could.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

So they looked up, and espied the wolf sitting amongst the branches; and they called him a cowardly rascal, and would not suffer him to come down till he was heartily ashamed of himself, and had promised to be good friends again with old Sultan.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)