different between coward vs chickenshit

English

Etymology

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. Unrelated to English cower. Displaced native Old English earg.

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: kou'?d, IPA^(key): /?ka??d/
• (US) enPR: kou'?rd, IPA^(key): /?ka??d/
• Hyphenation: co?ward
• Homophone: cowered

Noun

coward (plural cowards)

1. A person who lacks courage.
   • 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
• scaredy pants
• yellowbelly
• See also Thesaurus:coward

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

coward (comparative more coward, superlative most coward)

1. Cowardly.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act II, Scene 4,^[1]

     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,^[2]

     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.

Verb

coward (third-person singular simple present cowards, present participle cowarding, simple past and past participle cowarded)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To intimidate.
   • 1820, John Chalkhill, Thealma and Clearchus

     The first he coped with was their captain, whom / His sword sent headless to seek out a tomb. / This cowarded the valour of the rest, […]

References

• Coward in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

English

Alternative forms

• chicken-shit, chicken shit

Etymology

chicken +? shit

Pronunciation

Adjective

chickenshit (comparative more chickenshit, superlative most chickenshit)

1. (slang, vulgar) Petty and contemptible; contemptibly unimportant. (Compare bullshit.)
2. (vulgar, slang) Cowardly.

   How chickenshit of that girl to just stand there and do nothing.

Noun

chickenshit (countable and uncountable, plural chickenshits)

1. (slang, vulgar) Petty and contemptible thing(s).

   Don't waste your time on that chickenshit.

2. (slang, vulgar) A coward.

   I told him I wasn't having his insults, and he just backed right down. What a chickenshit.

3. (vulgar, military, slang) A low-ranking officer who lords over and needlessly makes life miserable for his underlings; a petty, abusive martinet.

   That chickenshit drove his men nearly to mutiny.

Synonyms

• (coward): coward; (slang:) chicken, pussy, wuss, shithouse
• (petty or contemptible thing): (mostly vulgar:) shit, crap, bullcrap, bullshit, junk, trash, dogshit, Irish bull, horseshit

Translations