different between poltroon vs yellowbelly

English

Alternative forms

• poltron (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle French poltron, from Italian poltrone.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /p?l?t?u?n/
• (US) IPA^(key): /p?l?t?un/

Noun

poltroon (plural poltroons)

1. An ignoble or total coward; a dastard; a mean-spirited wretch.
   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act I, Scene 1,^[1]

     Patience is for poltroons, such as he:

     He durst not sit there, had your father lived.

   • 1727, Daniel Defoe, An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions, London: J. Roberts, Chapter 8, p. 144,^[2]

     For the Devil’s a Coward in Nature,

     A pitiful sorry Poltroon;

     If you take but the Whip, he’ll give you the Slip;

     And before you can lash him, he’ll run.

   • 1778, George Washington, to Charles Lee following an act of insubordination

     You damned poltroon, you never tried them!

   • 1842, Nicholas Michell, The Traduced: An Historical Romance, London: T. & W. Boone, Volume I, Chapter 28, pp. 266-267,^[3]

     "To gain life by means of a breach of faith and honour, were indeed to render myself the poltroon, and the villain my accusers believe me."

   • 1951, P. G. Wodehouse, 'The Old Reliable', Hutchinson, London: 1981, p 162,

     The sounds outside had ceased...But somebody had been there, and she proposed to look into the matter thoroughly. There was nothing of the poltroon about Adela Shannon Cork

   • 1959, Robert A.Heinlein, Starship Troopers

     First is our unbreakable rule that every candidate must be a trained trooper, blooded under fire, a veteran of combat drops. No other army in history has stuck to this rule, although some came close. Most great military schools of the past — Saint Cyr, West Point, Sandhurst, Colorado Springs didn’t even pretend to follow it; they accepted civilian boys, trained them, commissioned them, sent them out with no battle experience to command men... and sometimes discovered too late that this smart young ‘officer’ was a fool, a poltroon, or a hysteric.

   • 'e2018' Jared, "Tech Evangelist", Silicon Valley episode 42, 5 minutes

     You judas, you cow-handed poltroon, we thought you were a stallion.

Synonyms

• (ignoble coward): craven, dastard

Translations

Adjective

poltroon (comparative more poltroon, superlative most poltroon)

1. Cowardly.
   • 1926, T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Chapter 82,^[4]

     Accordingly, to excuse our deliberate inactivity in the north, we had to make a show of impotence, which gave them to understand that the Arabs were too poltroon to cut the line near Maan and keep it cut.

Translations

References

• poltroon in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Further reading

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

English

Etymology

yellow +? belly

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?j?l??b?li/

Noun

yellowbelly (plural yellowbellies)

1. A coward.
2. (Britain, slang) Someone from Lincolnshire.
3. (Australia) The golden perch, Macquaria ambigua.
   • 1994, Rita Huggins & Jackie Huggins, Auntie Rita, in Heiss & Minter, Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Allen & Unwin 2008, p. 151:

     The creeks gave us lots of food, too—yellow belly and jew, perch and eel.

Derived terms

• yellow-bellied

Related terms

• yellowbelly slider

Translations