milk-livered

adjective

milk-liv·​ered ˈmilk-ˌli-vərd 

archaic

: cowardly, timorous

Synonyms

• chicken
• chicken-livered
• chickenhearted
• cowardly
• craven
• dastardly
• gutless
• lily-livered
• poltroon
• pusillanimous
• recreant
• spineless
• unheroic
• yellow

Examples of milk-livered in a Sentence

vented his spleen at those milk-livered men who refused to fight for king and country

Word History

First Known Use

1606, in the meaning defined above