chicken-livered

adjective

ˈchi-kən-ˌli-vərd How to pronounce chicken-livered (audio)
Definition of chicken-liverednext
as in afraid
having or showing a shameful lack of courage a chicken-livered newspaper editor who has been afraid to take on the town's powerful business elite

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Examples Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for chicken-livered
  1. afraid
  2. yellow
  3. scared
  4. frightened
  5. careful
  6. pusillanimous
  7. unheroic
  8. cowardly
Adjective
  • Expect lowball offers to come in here and there—and don't be deterred by them or afraid to turn them down.
    Michael Gargiulo, Forbes, 13 Dec. 2024
  • Alarmed, the complaint continues, the girls became afraid and pulled over near a Dollar General, just over a mile southeast of downtown Nashville.
    Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY, 13 Dec. 2024
Definition of afraid
Adjective
  • The look features bright coral eyeshadow covering the eyelid, a fuchsia shade in the crease, and a swipe of fluorescent yellow eyeliner on the outside half of the eye and right under the brow.
    Andrea Park, Teen Vogue, 20 July 2017
  • Three prominent Austin chefs teamed up with the Youngblood family to build a new restaurant from scratch that looks like a legacy chicken dinner house, down to the bright blue-and-yellow colors and the helpings of hot yeast rolls with honey.
    Bud Kennedy, star-telegram, 19 July 2017
Definition of yellow
Adjective
  • That evening, in the no man’s land, a field strewn with empty water bottles, four Shia families sat on a picnic blanket around a burner attached to a gas tank, looking scared and drinking yerba mate.
    Eliza Griswold, The New Yorker, 17 Dec. 2024
  • Once glued to their hiding spot, a scared cat may not come out when called by its owner.
    Claire Thornton, USA TODAY, 13 Dec. 2024
Definition of scared
Adjective
  • His fervor to determine who took the weapon reveals a shockingly monstrous side, turning his wife and children into frightened suspects and leading to a jarring tonal-shift ending that proves to be a cathartic, believable final destination for a film simmering with mistrust and anger.
    Tim Grierson, Los Angeles Times, 28 Nov. 2024
  • At worst, this could lead to one or more Kent State-type incidents, with frightened Guardsmen in hostile, unfamiliar territory.
    Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune, 21 Nov. 2024
Definition of frightened
Adjective
  • After that, Buckley seemed more careful about positioning, doing his best to keep the action in the open while not allowing Covington to close in and work from the clinch.
    Trent Reinsmith, Forbes, 15 Dec. 2024
  • Behind, kids are hoisted — careful with that hot chocolate!
    Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune, 15 Dec. 2024
Definition of careful
Adjective
  • Mark Kelly Americans who are rightfully appalled by the pusillanimous response to anti-Semitism on college campuses have been pulling their donations and calling for restrictions on anti-Israel student groups.
    Arthur Levitt, WSJ, 12 Nov. 2023
  • Those clumsy tales revealed Chazelle’s pusillanimous career ambitions.
    Armond White, National Review, 13 Jan. 2023
Definition of pusillanimous
Adjective
  • That larger significance is remarkably unheroic and fatalistic.
    Gabriel Winslow-Yost, Harper's Magazine, 23 Sep. 2024
  • In the world of The Boys, based on the gleefully scabrous 2000s indie comic-book series of the same name by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson, superheroes are real, pop-culture-dominating, and with rare exceptions, entirely unheroic.
    Brian Hiatt, Rolling Stone, 13 June 2024
Definition of unheroic
Adjective
  • During an interview on the debut episode of Sean with Sean Hannity on Tuesday, December 3, the actor admitted that sending a breakup letter to now-wife Jennifer Flavin via FedEx in 1994 was a cowardly move.
    Jason Fields, Newsweek, 5 Dec. 2024
  • Build Hagrid’s hut, play as the cowardly dog Fang, and help the famous trio find out what Draco Malfoy is up to.
    Mia Huelsbeck, People.com, 1 Dec. 2024
Definition of cowardly
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Thesaurus Entries Near chicken-livered

Chicken Littles

chicken-livered

chicken (out)

See More Nearby Entries 

Cite this Entry

“Chicken-livered.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/chicken-livered. Accessed 22 Dec. 2024.

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