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Cowardly   Listen
adjective
Cowardly  adj.  
1.
Wanting courage; basely or weakly timid or fearful; pusillanimous; spiritless. "The cowardly rascals that ran from the battle."
2.
Proceeding from fear of danger or other consequences; befitting a coward; dastardly; base; as, cowardly malignity. "The cowardly rashness of those who dare not look danger in the face."
Synonyms: Timid; fearful; timorous; dastardly; pusillanimous; recreant; craven; faint-hearted; chicken-hearted; white-livered.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cowardly" Quotes from Famous Books



... sat by his lord, grieving sorely at his death, the other ten thanes who had shown themselves to be faithless and cowardly approached with shame to his side. Then Wiglaf ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... say, too," solemnly pronounced the Texan; "shootin's too good for the like o' him; a man capable o' sech a cowardly, murderous trick desarves to die the ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... were, on all sides, and always kept himself in position so as to oppose to each of his vices the proof positive of the contrary virtues. Thus, if accused of usury, he could prove that he had lent, without interest, considerable sums of money. Cowardly and base in a tete-a-tete, he was bold and redoubtable in public; those who had made him tremble in secret were then compelled to acknowledge him a man of courage. Even his more than suspected probity was defended by such as believed themselves his depositaries, whereas they were, in ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... wait. The Athenian soldiers stationed at Eion were chafing at their inaction, and mutinous speeches were heard on all sides. What a man was this Cleon, this cowardly braggart, under whom they were to take the field against the most daring and skilful leader in Greece! They had known what to expect from such a general, since the day when they sailed for Thrace. These murmurs reached the ears of Cleon, and he saw that something ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... in rare good humor, for it was this very day that he had turned his money over to Tigg to make a fortune for him in the great Anglo-Bengalee Company. Now, rejoicing in his opportunity, he took it upon himself to answer. He called Martin a shameless, cowardly vagabond and ordered him from the door. Then he gave his arm to the old man and led him out ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... seein' that they weren't safer in rear than in front. The cowards are our best friends. Now them runaways," continued he, pointing to the Mexicans, who were crowding over the river, "are jest the most cowardly of 'em all, for in their fright they quite forgot the ford, and it's because they ran so far beyond it, that they are last to cross the water. And if you fire at 'em now, they'll find that they get nothin' by bein' cowards, and next time, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... there were any such cowardly males among them, but they could not prove it. The men were growing more and more silent, partly through anxiety and partly with grim confidence that no way could be found to force this issue of suffrage on the voters ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... the quick, and the shallow protestations he would have set up were stripped off in a moment, leaving bare every cowardly shift of his life. Nothing was left ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... this land; and not by delaying to give my sons for another hand more hostile to murder. But come, be armed, my heart; why do we delay to do dreadful but necessary deeds? Come, O wretched hand of mine, grasp the sword, grasp it, advance to the bitter goal of life, and be not cowardly, nor remember thy children how dear they are, how thou broughtest them into the world; but for this short day at least forget thy children; hereafter lament. For although thou slayest them, nevertheless they at least were dear, but ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... to a resignation of moral accountability from feudal attachment, is the contemptible and cowardly doctrine of fatalism, which Dryfesdale also professes. It is not with him the philosophic doctrine of the concurring impulses of circumstance, or of natural laws, but rather the stupendously nonsensical notion of the Arabian kismet, that from the beginning of time every event was fore-arranged ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... powerful (in a schoolgirl way), had other followers besides Katrinka who were induced to share her opinions because they were either too careless or too cowardly to ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... HOME AND FAMILY. Any man who is too cowardly to fight for his home and country deserves to live and die homeless ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... expected to come upon some stately mansion, but that afternoon crested blue jays and chipmunks had them all to themselves. Here, in the early morning, deer, bighorn, and the stately elk, come down to feed, and there, in the night, prowl and growl the Rocky Mountain lion, the grizzly bear, and the cowardly wolf. There were chasms of immense depth, dark with the indigo gloom of pines, and mountains with snow gleaming on their splintered crests, loveliness to bewilder and grandeur to awe, and still streams and shady pools, and ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... no matter for that. I know you well enough. Would you read about gnomes and then be so cowardly that you would fear to ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory

... she cried, suddenly throwing out her hands as if to ward off something horrible. Leaning forwards she gripped his shoulder. "It's so silly! Besides, think how cowardly it is to say you must do a thing because someone ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... brute-beast and blackguard! Cowardly scamp! I only wish I dared burn down the house And spoil ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... not reply; and the conflict which then took place, soon became terrific. We were almost equal in number, and well armed. But neither of us had that powder of sulphur and fire which strikes and kills the most valiant, even by the most cowardly hand. ...
— Theobald, The Iron-Hearted - Love to Enemies • Anonymous

... that miserable flight of our chief, was scared at the aspect of affairs, and doubted of the speedy putting down of the rebellion. The arming of the negroes was, in her opinion, the most cowardly blow of all. The loyal gentry were ruined, and robbed, many of them, of their only property. A score of our worst hands deserted from Richmond and Castlewood, and fled to our courageous Governor's fleet; not all of them, though some of them, were ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and could control moon and tides, but could not undo her own hateful sorceries, and who worshiped a god called Setebos. Morally, Shakspere's Caliban was insensible to kindness, had bestial passions, was cowardly, vengeful, superstitious. He had keen animal instincts and knew the island well. He understood Prospero in some measure; learned to talk, to know the stars, to compose poetry, and took pleasure ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... he was conscious of a cowardly wish that Volterra's revolver might have killed him ten minutes earlier. But he was ashamed of the mere thought when he remembered what Sabina would have to face. Volterra, while holding his wife firmly against the window sill, to force her to breathe the outer air, ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... presented it. Steadily and faithfully pursuing the matter, he had the satisfaction to carry with him his church, and obtain from it, in the midst of a slaveholding and slavetrading community, a resolution every way worthy of note in this day of cowardly compromise with the evil on the part of our leading ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... subsequent firing on Fort Sumter, yet no public notice was taken thereof; and when, months afterward, I came North, I found not one single sign of preparation. It was for this reason, somewhat, that the people of the South became convinced that those of the North were pusillanimous and cowardly, and the Southern leaders were thereby enabled to commit their people to the war, nominally in defense of their slave property. Up to the hour of the firing on Fort Sumter, in April, 1861, it does seem to me that our public men, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... both your happy gift of pleasing and the readiness of others to be pleased. It seems to me, Dickie, all doors open if you stretch out your hand. Well, my dear, I would have you go forward fearlessly. I would have you more ambitious, more self-confident. I see and deplore my own cowardly mistake. Instead of hiding you away at home, and keeping you to myself, I ought to have encouraged you to mix in the world and fill the position to which both your powers and your birth entitle you. I was wrong—I lament my folly. But there is ample time ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... A cowardly bull is much more dangerous than a courageous one, who lowers his head, shuts his eyes, and goes blindly at everything he sees. The last refuge of a bull in trouble is to leap the barrier, where he produces a lively ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... head in mute assent. But his silence seemed to him cowardly; he felt that he must cry out in the presence of those canvases, what he had not dared to say outside. It was a longing to flatter the dead woman, to implore her forgiveness, by confessing ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... and this head 205 So often in thy quarrel bled? Nor did I ever winch or grudge it, For thy dear sake. (Quoth she) Mum budget Think'st thou 'twill not be laid i' th' dish Thou turn'dst thy back? Quoth Eccho, Fish. 210 To run from those t'hast overcome Thus cowardly? Quoth Eccho, Mum. But what a vengeance makes thee fly From me too, as thine enemy? Or if thou hast no thought of me, 215 Nor what I have endur'd for thee, Yet shame and honour might prevail To keep thee thus from turning tail: ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... to Cecil and one or two other commissioners, asking, as a favour, that the King would permit Cobham to die first. Before he was secured by the officers, he had found time for this last protest: 'Cobham is a false and cowardly accuser. He can face neither me nor death without acknowledging his falsehood.' He was then ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... 16. A cowardly man thinks he will ever live, if warfare he avoids; but old age will give him no peace, though spears may ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... hardly any of the latter language, and Signor Carella had not yet learnt any of the former. Occasionally Miss Abbott had to act as interpreter between the lovers, and the situation became uncouth and revolting in the extreme. Yet Philip was too cowardly to break forth and denounce the engagement. He thought he should be more effective with Lilia if he had her alone, and pretended to himself that he must hear ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... does not give love out of pity. That is a cowardly thing to ask. [She pauses.] I must be frank with you, Freddy. You have got to face the facts. When I give my love, it will be to a man; and you are not ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair

... who was son of Callimedes, died at the age of ninety-seven. He composed twenty comedies, of which nine had the prize: he was a daring writer, but a cowardly warriour. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... this warning before her eyes, and being doubtful of Clarissa's surgical abilities, concluded to postpone her researches, and proposed to her companion to fill the basket with shells and pebbles from the beach, to which cowardly proposition Clarissa yielded but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... considerations of tact and taste and wisdom and respect, and thus some of the chief believers in the subconscious personality stick to the diagnosis that the lower mind in us which shows up in hypnotism is a rather brutal, stupid, lazy, cowardly, immoral creature which ordinarily rather deserves to be subdued by our noble and wise upper personality. And the automatic writings of the mediums indorse this disrespectful view, for it is difficult ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... the danger was, the more irresistible they ought to have felt the obligation to stand to the last by the cause of which they were the legitimate champions; and the final triumph of the Jacobin party owed hardly more to the energy of its leaders than to the cowardly and inglorious flight of the princes and nobles who left the field open without resistance to their ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... the word down the line. To his credit be it said, Jack paid little attention to them, tittupping along, head up, tail up, only when they came too close turning on them with a flash of white teeth that sent the cowardly brutes flying and brought cries of delight from the village folk who crowded nearer to inspect the strange dog, so small, so brave, and ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... Charlemagne could reach the children of his soul who stood in such dire need, the uncle of Marsile had reached the place of battle with a force of fifty thousand men. Pierced from behind by a cowardly lance, Oliver was sobbing out his life's blood. Yet ever he cried, "Montjoie! Montjoie!" and each time his voice formed the words, a thrust from his sword, or from the lances of his men, drove a soul down to Hades. And when he was breathing his last, and lay on the earth, humbly confessing ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... nothing to ask his pardon for. It would have been cruel and cowardly in me to let him put out the poor hawk's eyes," said Richard, with a Northman's stern contempt for pain, disdaining to mention his own burnt cheek, which indeed the King might have seen ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge

... strove to call up the hue and cry to come to the rescue, but the cowardly hinds were afraid of the thieves, and not one would ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the ill-fated Parthenopean Republic, that short-lived period of aristocratic government which was set up in self-defence by certain Neapolitan nobles, prelates and men of science after the abrupt departure of their cowardly King and Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army of Cardinal Ruffo assaulted Naples; how the city capitulated to the Cardinal on the express condition that all life and property ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... Wych-on-the-Wold next day; although he did not announce that he should be absent from home so long, he intended not to return until Esther had gone back to Shoreditch. He hoped that he was not being cowardly in thus running away; but after having assured Esther that she could count on his behaving normally for the rest of her visit, he found his sleep that night so profoundly disturbed by feverish visions that when morning came he dreaded his inability to behave as both he would wish himself and ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... both in good and evil, surpassed the ordinary standard of later and more degenerated ages. What is more revolting—what proves a deeper degeneracy of human nature, than horrid crimes conceived in the bosom of cowardly effeminacy? If such crimes are to be portrayed by the poet, he must neither seek to palliate them, nor to mitigate our horror and aversion of them. Moreover, by bringing the sacrifice of Iphigenia thus immediately before us, the poet has succeeded in lessening ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... the impossible. I am tired of this unequal contest of which we are certain to have the worst. It's cowardly, it's ridiculous, it's anything you please.... I don't care! Lupin is stronger than we are. Consequently, there's nothing to do ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... for the Archer and the Scorpion and the Crab and the other Houses were as busy as ever. Sometimes the crowd broke, and were frightened, and Leo strove to keep them steady by telling them that this was cowardly; and sometimes they mocked at the Houses that were killing them, and Leo explained that this was even more cowardly ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling

... in the morning, she had refused to accept the kindness he had shown her in making further inquiry from the medical men, so as to obviate any inquest being held. Oh! she was grateful! She had been cowardly and false, and had shown her cowardliness and falsehood in action that could not be recalled; but she was not ungrateful. It sent a glow to her heart, to know how she could feel towards one who had reason to despise her. His cause for contempt ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... traitors and always adventurers. The Burgundians they considered vulgar and stupid. The Bretons were reputed to be fickle and changeable, and were often reproached for the death of Arthur. The Lombards were called avaricious, vicious and cowardly; the Romans, seditious, turbulent and slanderous; the Sicilians, tyrannical and cruel; the inhabitants of Brabant, men of blood, incendiaries, brigands and ravishers; the Flemish, fickle, prodigal, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... it was to derive the Romans and his own Augustus from him; but all the three poets are manifestly partial to their heroes in favour of their country. For Dares Phrygius reports of Hector that he was slain cowardly; AEneas, according to the best account, slew not Mezentius, but was slain by him; and the chronicles of Italy tell us little of that Rinaldo d'Este who conquers Jerusalem in Tasso. He might be a champion of the Church, but we know not that ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... treatment upon the organisation of the animals he collects around him. The wild boar lives only on fruits and roots, which, like the hippopotamus, he tears up with his tusks, those safeguards of his, amid the many perils of his life in the woods. In the service of man, on the contrary, he becomes lazy, cowardly, and greedy; unlearns his energy and combativeness, eats all that is offered to him in the trough, even meat, when it happens to be thrown in; and, in order to do this moreeasily, has recalled toward his mouth those formidable war-tusks ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... to him; "For," says he, "I took notice that he clapped his mouth very close to your ear." "Why," replied the other, "he charged me to take care, for the future, not to put any confidence in such cowardly rascals as you are." ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... December 6th, when Gordon visited the captured city, he discovered that the rebel generals who had surrendered had all been killed, in spite of the stipulation that their lives were to be spared. It is said that Gordon was so enraged with this cowardly treachery that he burst into tears, and then went forth, revolver in hand, to seek the Governor, in order to shoot him. It is to be regretted that Sir Henry Gordon, in his biography of his brother, denies this circumstance. Nothing is ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... Plato derives woman and all the animals from man, by successive degradations. Cowardly or unjust men are born again as women. Light, airy, and superficial men, who carried their minds aloft without the use of reason, are the materials for making birds, the hair being transmuted into feathers and wings. From men wholly ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... shivered with new apprehension, the eyes of Snake le Vasquez glittered with new hope. He faced his steely eyed opponent for an instant only, then with a snarl like that of an angry beast sprang upon him. Benson met the cowardly attack with the flash of a powerful fist, and the outlaw fell to the floor with a hoarse cry of rage and pain. But he was quickly upon his feet again, muttering curses, and again he attacked his grim-faced antagonist. Quick blows rained upon his defenseless face, for the strong, silent ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... fortunately for the moral power of the law, the Governor of the State revoked the order of the Mayor, and assured the Orangemen of full protection in their right to parade. The city, which had rung with indignant cries at the cowardly surrender of the Mayor to the mob, was now jubilant. The regiments ordered on duty by the Governor for the protection of the procession responded with alacrity, and came out with full ranks. The mob, still defiant, still thinking themselves masters of the situation, made an attack on the procession ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... door, but was met by Gilbert, who, pistol in hand, held him stock still. In desperation Foley reached for a club and ran back of the frightened child in the hope that she might serve as guard against his assailant. Like a flash, Sandy followed, and knocked the cowardly brute senseless with the barrel ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... leg over the back of another, and striking his finger briskly down his nose, elicited a flame that ignited his tobacco, and then he puffed, and puffed, till every moth in the shop coughed aloud. The uneasiness of Hans increased, and he looked towards the door with the most cowardly intention; and, lo! two laughing, dimpled faces, were peeping in at them. "Ha! how are you?" said the stranger; "come in! come in!" and to Hans' horror, two very equivocal damsels entered the shop. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various

... repay you enough for all you have done for me. I should be acting a cowardly part if I were to let you give up a good place for my sake, and allow you to toil and slave for me, when I am ready enough to work for my own support; you cannot tell how much I can do, and how much I know. ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... Countess and her husband fared to Florence in 1774; and here matters went from bad to worse. Charles was now seldom sober day or night; and his jealousy often found expression in filthy abuse and cowardly assaults. Hitherto he had been simply disgusting; now he was a constant menace, even to her life. She lived in hourly fear of his brutality; but in her darkest hour sunshine came again into her life with the coming of Vittorio Alfieri, whose name was to be linked ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... enough to ask me who was in the deal, and what timber we expected to trade for. When I told him Lige Smith and Jack Jackson were going to help me, he looked scared and asked me if I thought they would split on him. He was so excited I thought him cowardly, but the poor devil had reason enough, I supposed, to want to keep the transaction from the ears of his father, or worse still—the bishop. He seemed easier when I assured him the boys were square, and immensely gratified at the ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... Fain would I turn to the most interesting of all subjects. Cowardly backwardness: 'For whosoever is ashamed of me ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... man with whom I pass the time pleasantly and profitably, although he will not admit a fear of ghosts, still will not sleep in an empty house because of possible noises. I would rather spend a Saturday evening in the company of the cowardly Falstaff than of the bold Hotspur. If it were not for sack, villainous sack, and a few spots upon his front, you would go far to find a better companion than the fat old Knight. Bob Acres was not much for valor and he ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... came to Aberdeen Gully last night with most of the men, leaving twelve and an N.C.O. to act as bearers in the Zigzag track, these to be relieved every twelve hours. A few wounded stragglers reached us, but there was little doing to-day. We had one cowardly chap, who had had his fill of fighting and tried to do away with himself by taking a draught from a cresol tin. He is now under close arrest and will be handed over to the tender mercies ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... your cowardly tricks. Another was when you ran away after knocking that lamp over at the fair, the other day, and left Rosher and me to get out of the bother as best we could. That was what practically got me thrown out of the school. For two pins ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... laws. You will find it so almost always in history. If a nation is laid waste by war, it is generally their own fault. They have sinned against the law which God has appointed for nations. They have lost courage and prudence, and trust in God, and fellow- feeling and unity, and they have become cowardly and selfish and split up into parties, and so they are easily conquered by their own fault, as the Bible tells us the Jews were by the Chaldeans; and their ruin is God's judgment, God's opinion plainly expressed of what He thinks of them for having become cowardly and selfish, and factious and disinterested. ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... women who supported them—not by advice as to particulars, but by fortifying their feelings of duty, and by directing their ambition. More frequently, I must confess, I have observed the domestic influence gradually transforming a man, naturally generous, noble, and unselfish, into a cowardly, commonplace, place-hunting, self-seeker, thinking of public business only as the means of making himself comfortable; and this simply by daily contact with a well-conducted woman, a faithful wife, an excellent mother, but from whose mind the grand notion ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... is not one of my habits, and I know my mistress better than she knows herself. She thinks that suicide is not a sin, but says it is cowardly; and she utterly detests and loathes cowardice. Dr. Grey, I could not rest quietly in my coffin if she is left alone in this dreary house, after I am carried to my long home. Will you stay here awhile, or take her to your house,—at least ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... have been more foolish even than cowardly had it listened to any such proposals. The position, therefore, was one of inevitable and increasing friction. It was a matter of life and death to England that no other great Western fleet should exist besides the French, and it was a matter of national existence to Germany once she had undertaken ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... turned round. She was standing before the open window, her foot upon the narrow stone balcony, with one arm clasping her son ready to bear him into death, the other extended menacingly towards the cowardly deserter. The moon lit up ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... the street and rang the door bell. Then her heart began a loud beating. S'pose the old lady shouldn't want to be adopted and should act cross? The child had half a minute to run away before anyone came to the door. But that would be cowardly and Marjorie detested a coward, so she ...
— Dew Drops Vol. 37. No. 17, April 26, 1914 • Various

... grandeur; whose heroic deeds were confined to cutting down defenceless men, and to forcing and disembowelling unhappy women; and yet I have seen this wretched fellow termed by French journals (Carlist of course) the young, the heroic general. Infamy on the cowardly assassin! The shabbiest corporal of Napoleon would have laughed at his generalship, and half a battalion of Austrian grenadiers would have driven him and his rabble army ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... utterly unprepared for the result, for no sooner did the huge sea-lion realize his advance as he strode forward to throw the stone, than it was smitten with panic. When, moreover, it heard the 'crack' of the pebble as it hit a rock behind him, the cowardly creature went wild with fear, and made convulsive and clumsy efforts to reach the water ten feet away, tumbling down twice in doing so, and finally plunging into the ocean trembling as though with ague. At the alarm, the entire rookery ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... here to support the case of a poor man who is I think being trampled on by this do-nothing legislator. But I am bound to say that the lord in his kind is very much better than the poor man in his. Such a wretched, squalid, lying, cowardly creature I did not think that even England could produce. And yet the man has a property in land on which he ought to be able to live in humble comfort. I feel sure that I have leagued myself with a rascal, whereas I believe the lord, in spite of his ignorance and his idleness, to be ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... to do so. Raoul, I have been weak and cowardly. I knew you so thoroughly—I knew how devotedly you loved me, that I trembled at the bare idea of the grief I was going to cause you; and that is so true, Raoul, that at this very moment I am now speaking to you, bending thus before you, my heart crushed in my bosom, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... were there with my good guard! Are we to die here like rats, fairly murdered? Cowardly knaves! Hold out, hold out, my men! 'Tis sharp work, but some of us will smile at this hereafter. Who stands by Alroy to-night bravely and truly, shall have his heart's content to-morrow. Fear not: I was not born to die in a civic ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... release us, curse you, and then I'll make you sorry you ever lived," hissed Crosby. "You are a black-hearted cur, a cowardly dog—" ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon

... details of how bewildered I was by his strange request and what I went through when I found that I did not really love him. Of course, I tried to imagine what had occurred that caused him to ask me to leave everything and go away with him. Whatever it was, I felt it was cowardly of him to leave unless it was all his ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... a blank charge. We'll give these weak-kneed parly-voos one more call to duty. Of course not a frog-eater of them all will come. But I said that a gun should be the signal. Possibly they didn't hear the first one, the damned, deaf, cowardly hounds!" ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... occasion, so far from gaining any advantage by it, he was likely to give high offence to the king. If then, as appears most probable, the confession by which Anne Boleyn disinherited and illegitimatised her daughter was false; a perjury so wicked and cowardly must brand her memory with everlasting infamy:—even should the contrary have been the fact, the transaction does her little honor; in either case it affords ample justification to that daughter in leaving, as she did, her remains without a monument ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... have not grown cowardly," said Eleanor; "but I am afraid of mounting Tippoo; and what I am afraid of, Mr. Carlisle, I ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... Where is the villain that dares to say it is not? Then that is a settled question. I hear no contradiction. Who dares contradict? I hear no reply. Who is afraid of the King of Babylon? If ye know of such an one, bring the cowardly dog to me, and I will take off his head—Ha! ha! ha! Old Jeremiah! Where is he? Ah, I'll soon put him out of the way. Can there be any danger while the King of Babylon is fighting with ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones

... cried. "And all the time I thought you and Mrs. Orcutt were my friends! And all the time you were lying in wait to ruin an old man! You couldn't fight him in the open! You were afraid! But my father is used to fighting men—not cowardly thieves! And as for riding in one of your trucks, I would die first!" She turned to McNabb. ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx

... oppressed him any more than he can cope physically with a powerful full-grown man. True, he may allow himself to be killed rather than yield, but this is being so morbidly heroic as to come close round again to cowardice; for it is little else than suicide, which is universally condemned as cowardly. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... going on, the perfidious Charlot remained behind and gave his men the signal to advance. That cowardly troop issued from the wood and encompassed the three knights. All three were equally surprised at the attack, but neither of them suspected the other to have any hand in the treason. Seeing the attack made equally upon them all, they united their efforts to resist it, and made ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... as a last blow, Claude beheld Dubuche reappear, dragging the Margaillans along. As soon as he came in front of the picture, the architect, ill at ease, overtaken by cowardly shame, wished to quicken his pace and lead his party further on, pretending that he saw neither the canvas nor his friends. But the contractor had already drawn himself up on his short, squat legs, and was staring at the picture, and asking aloud in ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... his imagination, and speaking eagerly, 'so as not to make a noise in pulling it to behind him. I suppose I made some sort of a noise in going behind him, but any way, he looked up at me—I can see him now!' he cried, with a swift conviction, 'as if he was here at this very minute, white and cowardly. That's what he was, sir. White and cowardly, ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... second it wavered; then before the smoke had lifted it broke, and shrieking in terror, it fled for cover, leaving the valorous Souvestre alone, to revile them for a swarm of cowardly rats. ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... that his rider intended to clear the obstacle that separated him from his cowardly enemy—who, on his part, could not restrain himself from making a ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... Palatinate conquered, the King's son-in-law an exile, the House of Austria dominant on the Continent, the Protestant religion and the liberties of the Germanic body trodden under foot. Meanwhile, the wavering and cowardly policy of England furnished matter of ridicule to all the nations of Europe. The love of peace which James professed would, even when indulged to an impolitic excess, have been respectable, if it had proceeded from tenderness for his people. But the truth is, that, while he had nothing to spare ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... be a cowardly thing to do. It would also be very foolish. She has many friends both here and in England. I don't ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... love her till the day I die. But I am going to be an Italian old bachelor, with no wife but my pipe and no family but my canvas children. Do you triumph, madame? Do you triumph? Over my subdued heart? No! Over my broken life? No! Over any cowardly complaint of mine? Over any envy of this good young Englishman? No! no! no! No! madame, I was not born a cad, and you shall not remould me. Accept, once more, ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray

... exemplifying more than tongue can teach. In the face of bad example, the best of precepts are of but little avail. The example is followed, not the precepts. Indeed, precept at variance with practice is worse than useless, inasmuch as it only serves to teach the most cowardly of vices—hypocrisy. Even children are judges of consistency, and the lessons of the parent who says one thing and does the opposite, are quickly seen through. The teaching of the friar was not worth much, who preached the virtue of honesty with a ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... did not keep certain of his promises to Alaric, who consequently, in the year 408, marched to Rome and besieged it. The cowardly emperor fled to Ravenna, leaving his generals to make terms with Alaric. It was agreed that Alaric should withdraw from Rome upon the payment of 5,000 pounds of gold and 30,000 ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren

... of Kathryn was gathering point and focus, in these days, by reason of her increasing references to Claims, and the All-Mind, and to the fact that the pain in a neglected tooth was only a manifestation of cowardly unbelief. The doctor scented mischief in the glib phrases. He held his peace heroically, though, albeit now and then he longed to shake his babbling patient as the terrier ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... not persist in his cowardly attack upon his friends in the almost sinking ship, but sailed off, and allowed the "Richard" to continue her life-and-death struggle with her enemy. The struggle was not now of long duration; for Capt. Pearson, seeing that his ship was a perfect wreck, and that ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... any explanations," rejoined Rachel, "and you are not bound to give me any; but I repeat what I said. It is cowardly." ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... against the bank. He looked at Van dully. This was the man who had "sent him up"—and saved him from the sand. There was much that lay between them, much that must always lie. He had no issues to dodge. There was nothing cowardly in Barger, despite ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... Council had anticipated from the reports of the night before. They were prepared to take a heavy loss on the bridges, but they had not prepared for the thing that defeated them; that as the mob is braver than the individual, so also it is more cowardly. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... killed. He was callous. Five years in the Lgion des Etrangers and fourteen more of war and preparation for war had rendered him proof against squeamishness. The man was a loathly thing who had slain in cold blood, cowardly, evil, and unclean. Possibly he had murdered within the past few days, and, at any rate he had ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... care of her then, curse you! Why don't you take care of her? Don't you see there are lives to save? Oh, you cowardly beasts!" ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... one of those men who can be honest as long as he is forced to be; but, who, the moment the pressure is taken off, can perpetrate crime for his own interests, without pity or remorse. I know the type well—cold-blooded, cunning, selfish, hypocritical, secretive, without much intellect, cowardly, but still, under certain circumstances, capable of great boldness. So Gualtier ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... (S53). The resistance to them became feeble and faint-hearted. At last a royal tax, called Danegeld, or Dane money (992), was levied on all landed property in England in order to buy off the invaders. For a brief period this cowardly concession answered its purpose. But a time came when the Danes refused to ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... commanded Vitalis; "it's you, not the child! What a cowardly shame to torture these poor children who ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot

... is nature. Up to the place where man puts on trousers it's a battle of thews and teeth. And nature never intended pants to mark the line where she changes the order of things. And the servile, weakling, groveling, charitable, cowardly philosophy of Christ—it doesn't fool me, Henry. I'm a pagan and I want the advantage of all the force, all the power, that nature gave me, to live life as a dangerous, exhilarating experience. I shall live life to the full—live it hard—live ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... of himself and his hearers. But the individuality lies deeper than phrases: Falstaff takes his private standard into battle with him. There is nothing more obviously funny than the short paunchy man, let us not say cowardly, but disinclined to action, who finds himself engaged in a fight. Lever has used him a score of times (beginning with Mr. O'Leary in the row at a gambling-hall in Paris), and whether he runs or ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... might take Mary in charge the moment school was over and tell her a few things. Yet that was hardly possible. Much as she hated the brown-eyed girl who had worsted her at every point, in her own cowardly heart lurked a respect for Marjorie's high standard of honor. So far Mary knew nothing against her. Perhaps she would never know. Perhaps if Marjorie and Jerry and Irma tried to prejudice Mary against her, the girl would ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... did not proceed with his remarks, for John Miles, seizing him by the shoulder, tripped him up, and strode away, leaving him prostrate, and pouring out a volley of curses. Being a bully, and cowardly as most bullies are, he did not pursue his broad-shouldered enemy, but vowed vengeance whenever a good ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... sake, Ashweesha," said Achmet, starting up; "I have little hope, it is true, for my enemies are too strong for me, but it were cowardly to fail for want of an effort. Allah bless ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... think over with some care the things for which you may pray, the aspirations which your children can share with you. Few things are more difficult than this, so to pray that all can make the prayer their own. Let it also be a prayer of love and joy, not a craven begging off from punishments, nor a cowardly plea for protection and provision. We can pray over all these things with gratitude and with confidence toward the God of love. Do not try to preach in your prayers. Many prayers have been ruined by preaching, just as some preaching has been spoiled by praying to the people. Usually ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... her conscience, and it prevented many disputes which would probably have begun in some small household disarrangement, and bred only dislike and religious offense. Her Methodism had neither been cowardly nor demonstrative, but had been made most conscious to all by her sweet ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... if you're afraid,' said I, with a sneer; 'and if there are any other cowardly Turnerites here, they may join you. Whoever has got pluck will follow the Frees. ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne

... in 1839. On the recommendation of Danton, he entered the office of the attorney at the chatelet, Paris, in 1787. Head clerk for Maitre Bordin in the same city, the same year. Returned to the country two years later to become a lawyer at Troyes. Became an obscure and cowardly member of the Convention. Acquired the friendship of Talleyrand and Fouche, in June, 1800, under singular and opportune circumstances. Successively and rapidly became tribune, councillor of state, count of the Empire—created Comte ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... German princes deserted their posts in the night, and fled to Tyre; the road to which was soon filled with soldiers and baggage in indiscriminate confusion; the feeble relinquishing their property, and the cowardly casting away their arms. ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... English from the Field returne, Some of those French who when the Fight began, Forsooke their friends, and hoping yet to earne, Pardon, for that so cowardly they ran, Assay the English Carridges to burne, Which to defend them scarsely had a man; For that their keepers to the field were got, To picke such spoyles, ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton

... was almost more than I could bear; I turned away, waiting for the tremendous concussion; I heard awful curses from the men, the cowardly shouting of "Roaring John," the blasphemies of "Dick the Ranter." I knew that Black alone was calm; and at the last I fixed my eyes upon him when the head of the torpedo's foam was not thirty yards away from us. ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... stung to indignation at last, "it is cruel of you to treat me so, simply because I wouldn't commit murder. Yes—murder. I say it would have been murder! I'm no coward; and it is cowardly to shoot down a man and him ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... it, how we often are reminded of funny things even in the midst of danger? Bill, a cripple and unable to move about with the agility needed to fend off a cowardly attack by this miserable piker, showed the stuff he was made of when he burst out laughing, for he was reminded by this threat of that old yarn about a softy's threatening to break the umbrella of his rival found ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... all damn'd cowardly fear! Now did I think I had drunk Nature up to Resolution: I have heard of those that could have dar'd in their Drink; But I find, drunk or sober, 'tis ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... first-born; or why a daughter must sell her chastity to get funds to pay for the father's dissipation, and the like. Starting as Right Reason, Giri has, in my opinion, often stooped to casuistry. It has even degenerated into cowardly fear of censure. I might say of Giri what Scott wrote of patriotism, that "as it is the fairest, so it is often the most suspicious, mask of other feelings." Carried beyond or below Right Reason, Giri became a monstrous misnomer. It harbored under its wings every sort of sophistry and hypocrisy. ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... Leviatt must do the murder. But I think it would be better to have him employ some other person to do it for him; that would give him just the character that would fit him best. I want to make him seem too cowardly—no, not cowardly, because I don't think he is a coward: but too cunning—to ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... without the means of death, would be solitary confinement. "Stay! with this knife in my hand—means of death—yes, it shall be so." And he hurriedly drew the knife across his throat; no use, nothing done; his cowardly skin shrank away from cutting—he dared not cut again; a little ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... instance, Bret Harte's Jack Hamlin, or even the Master himself in The Master of Ballantrae, one can feel a sincere affection or at least have a grudging sort of admiration, but it is not possible to even faintly like or hesitatingly pity a cowardly Robert Herrick, whose self-pity is so strong, and who from first to last is, as his creator intended him to be, a thorough inefficient. Half-hearted in his wickedness, self-saving in his repentance, he somehow fails to interest one; and even his lower-class associates, the horrible ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... himself as cunningly as possible against the chances of being detected in his crime, and that was all Joe Harris possessed in the way of a conscience; that was what constituted the chief difference to him between right and wrong—the cowardly yet restraining fear of being found out. Then, if the worst did come to the worst, he would swear that he had not stolen the children, but had accidentally come upon them wandering about at nightfall alone, and out ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... did not turn round; the next moment she sprang away from him, and did not pause till she had got down to the boat, which she was about to push off, but bethought herself that it would be too cowardly, so she remained standing and ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... tocsin. Thought of no danger to come restrained their furious anger. Quick into weapons of war the husbandman's peaceful utensils All were converted; dripped with blood the scythe and the ploughshare. Quarter was shown to none: the enemy fell without mercy. Fury everywhere raged and the cowardly cunning of weakness. Ne'er may I men so carried away by injurious passion See again! the sight of the raging wild beast would be better. Let not man prattle of freedom, as if himself he could govern! Soon as the barriers are torn away, then all of the evil Seems ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... seconds would now have interfered, but my temper was not to be restrained, and, to the astonishment of those present, I seized the count by the throat, and, tearing open his tunic, laid bare a breastplate which he wore next his skin. No blow that I could have struck this cowardly noble would have hurt him so much as this exposure. With shamefaced looks his seconds led him away. This was the last I saw of him, for he soon after left Holland, and took service with the Spaniards, with whom he had long been ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... interrogated— called a scoundrel by the captain before conviction,—the proud blood mantled in the cheeks of one who, at that period, was incapable of crime. The blush of virtuous indignation was construed into presumptive evidence of guilt. The captain,—a superficial, presuming, pompous, yet cowardly creature, whose conduct assisted in no small degree to excite the mutiny on board of his own ship,—declared himself quite convinced of Peters's guilt, because he blushed at the bare idea of being suspected; and punishment ensued, with all the degradation allotted ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... were the most cowardly girl on earth—afraid of your own shadow—and always in hysterics over something, so that she and Ela were sorry you came, dreading that ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... and the three brothers were carried southwards to Emain. There the treachery plotted against them was carried out, as they sat in the banquet-hall; for Concobar's men brought against them the power of cowardly flames, setting fire to the hall, and slaying the sons of Usnac as they hurried forth from under the ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... they are not so well known, and it will be known later. Up to date about two hundred Bisayan Indians have died, most of them from diseases. Don Pedro Cotoan died while en route from Jolo to Sanboangan, in order to take back the Bisayans, who are a most cowardly race. Those who have done deeds of valor are the Caragas, and the Joloans tremble at sight of them. Don Pedro Almonte remains as governor and lieutenant for the captain-general at Sanboangan, with one hundred and fifty Spaniards, as has been reported. Captain Jines Ros is to stay ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... monkeys to sell them, know very well that they can easily succeed in taming those which inhabit certain islands; while monkeys of the same species, caught on the neighbouring continent, die of terror or rage when they find themselves in the power of man. The crocodiles of one lake in the llanos are cowardly, and flee even when in the water; whilst those of another lake will attack with extreme intrepidity. It would be difficult to explain this difference of disposition and habits, by the mere aspect of the respective localities. The sharks of the port of La Guayra seem ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... was with her, and there was no escaping it. It glared at her whichever way she turned, a monster of destruction waiting to devour. And she was afraid, horribly, unspeakably afraid, with a fear that was neither physical nor cowardly, yet which set her ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... young men come nearer to mere ideal heroes de roman than any other characters in Euripides. They are surprisingly handsome and brave and unselfish and everything that they should be; and they stand out like heroes against the mob of cowardly little Taurians in the Herdsman's speech. Yet they have none of the unreality that is usual in such figures. The shadow of madness and guilt hanging over Orestes makes a difference. At his first entrance, when danger is still far off, he is a mass of broken nerves; he depends absolutely ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides

... hundreds of years. It seemed dreadful that the town should blaze for ever in the same spot; dreadful at least to people going away to adventure upon the sea, and beholding it as a circumscribed mound, eternally burnt, eternally scarred. From the deck of the ship the great city appeared a crouched and cowardly figure, a ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... hated the thought of people behind me looking at me. I rarely summoned the courage to turn my head either one way or the other. I vastly admired the "bravery" of the small, 15-year-old boy who recited so calmly and so well. I was too cowardly to play foot-ball and base-ball, and I dreaded even my favorite tennis because the spectators put me in a state of scared self-consciousness. Knowing my own condition, I was yet so blind to it most of the time, and such a Jekyll-and-Hyde, that I actually pitied a boy of 19 ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... cowardly French,—sinner ye," said the Elder, struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better folks than ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... trouble in driving them to the d—-." At Braddock's defeat, though the regiment he had commanded "behaved like men and died like soldiers," he could hardly find words to express his contempt for the conduct of the British "cowardly regulars," writing of their "dastardly behavior" when they "broke and ran as sheep before hounds," and raging over being "most scandalously" and "shamefully beaten." When the British first landed on New York Island, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... He had had horses and automobiles to use; he had had great stretches of park and woodland to roam through and hunt over. And best of all, he had had the best teachers in all Greece. But these he had neglected and defied at every possible turn. Velo Kupenol was lazy, cowardly and deceitful. That he was not yet a criminal was due to the watchful care and great forgiveness of the uncle who had befriended him. In the past few years this forgiveness had been stretched to its utmost. Velo himself was not aware of the number of disgraceful things his uncle had ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... of our text prescribes the submission of our judgment to God, in the confidence that His wisdom will guide us. Committing our way unto the Lord does not mean shifting the trouble of patient thought about our duty off our own shoulders. It is no cowardly abnegation of the responsibility of choice which is here enjoined; nor is there any sanction of lazily taking the first vagrant impulse, wafted we know not whence, that rises in the mind, for the voice of God. But, just because we are to commit our way to Him, we are bound to the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... compassion upon me. 'Consider,' said I, 'that I am a stranger, and ought not to be subject to this rigorous law, and that I have another wife and children in my own country.' Although I spoke in the most pathetic manner, no one was moved by my address; on the contrary, they ridiculed my dread of death as cowardly, made haste to let my wife's corpse into the pit, and lowered me down the next moment in an open coffin with a vessel full of water and ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... Sarcasm—the low, cowardly, despicable sarcasm of the dregs of the people—was the beginning and the end of this youth. He was a perfect type of those Parisians who bear upon their faces the mocking scepticism of the great city of blague in which they are born. The smile, the shrewdness and the mischief of the ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... were not ready for it yet, and so He casts the shield of His protection round them for a moment, and interposes Himself between them and the band of soldiers in order that their weakness may have a little more time to grow strong. And though it was wrong and cowardly for them to forsake Him and flee, yet these words of my text more than half gave them permission and warrant for their departure: 'Let these go ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... decided to return to Herculaneum? Her hands relaxed. What a silly little fool she was! She, who despised and contemned gossip, was giving it ready ear. Had she ever found gossip other than an errant, cowardly liar? Gossip, gossip! Ah, if gossip, when she had made her round, would not leave suspicion behind her; suspicion, hydra-headed! What signified it that Warrington intended to come home to live? What signified it that her brother's wife would ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... vision of God so vivid and real and reassuring that surely no saint nor prophet had ever had a better, he had made no more than vague responsive movements; he had allowed himself to be persuaded into an unreasonable and cowardly delay, and the fetters of association and usage and minor interests were as unbroken as they had been before ever the vision shone. Was it credible that there had ever been such a vision in a life so entirely dictated by immediacy and instinct as his? We are all creatures of the dark stream, ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... various ways, been sought for by all. There is no man so dishonest, but what labors to impress upon others the conviction of his honesty; no man so deceptive, but what wishes to be considered sincere; nor cowardly, but desires to be reputed brave; and no man is so abandonedly vicious, but what desires to be considered virtuous by his fellow creatures. All choose a good name in preference to a bad one. This being ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... Arthur sickened, but there was no other case. Before the end of the week thirty or forty boys had gone, but the rest stayed on. There was a general wish to please the Doctor, and a feeling that it was cowardly ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... affection as strong and tender as it was enduring and disinterested, she urged him to relinquish his determination to meet the Dead Boxer on the following day. John soothed her, chid her, and even bantered her, as a cowardly girl, unworthy of being the sister of Meehaul Neil, but to her, as well as to all others who had attempted to change his purpose, he was immovable. No; the sense of his disgrace had sunk too deep into his heart, and the random allusions just made by Ellen herself to the Dead Boxer's villainy, ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... for which familiarity had bred contempt. He hated the shams and the hypocrisies of it and with the clear vision of an unspoiled mind he had penetrated to the rotten core of the heart of the thing—the cowardly greed for peace and ease and the safe-guarding of property rights. That the fine things of life—art, music and literature—had thriven upon such enervating ideals he strenuously denied, insisting, rather, that they had endured in spite ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... No thanks to Betsey for killing the bear. She had to, or the bear would have killed the baby, but everlasting shame upon her worthless husband for making it necessary for her to do what he ought to have done. Betsey was out of her sphere when killing the bear, and so was the cowardly man when letting her ...
— The Heroic Women of Early Indiana Methodism: An Address Delivered Before the Indiana Methodist Historical Society • Thomas Aiken Goodwin

... there was no safety except in flight, ignominious, cowardly flight... After all, how could Buddy have known? He was a good boy, and he had shown his love, his loyalty, in a thousand ways. Gray hated him at this moment, but, more bitterly even, he hated himself. It was ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... faithful and intelligent men, but there were some who were not; and an incident occurred in the Nashville campaign in the next year which showed what mischiefs were likely to happen when a telegraph operator was cowardly or untrustworthy. [Footnote: See "The Battle of Franklin," by the present writer, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... "The cowardly old schemer, to strike in the back; but we can beat her. She did not count on my helping you—I, who know ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... speech was welcome to the girl, gave her a touch of courage sufficient for cowardly protestations. It seemed to relieve the tension drawn by the other woman's torment. It was more like the abuse that was familiar to her. A gush ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana



Words linked to "Cowardly" :   afraid, cowardice, craven, unmanly, white-livered, faint-hearted, dastardly, dastard, yellow-bellied, poor-spirited, chicken, fearful, recreant, timid, coward, chickenhearted, lily-livered, pusillanimous, brave, caitiff, fainthearted



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