Chickenhearted

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Lacking courage or showing cowardice; afraid to face danger or difficulty with boldness
2. Displaying a pronounced absence of courage that leads to a tendency to flee from danger or avoid difficult situations
3. Showing a weak or fainthearted nature that avoids confrontation or risk

Etymology: "Chicken-heart" was an old English term for a timid, cowardly person, and "chickenhearted" is simply that noun turned into an adjective by the suffix "-hearted," which has long meant having a certain kind of heart, as in "lionhearted" or "warmhearted." The pattern is a straightforward compound: "chicken" supplies the image of a small, easily frightened bird, and "heart" supplies the seat of courage in older English thinking. The same construction produced "hen-hearted," a close relative with the same meaning, which shows that the bird being chosen was a matter of style rather than a fixed idiom. Both words belong to a family of animal-based insults for cowardice, in which the timid creature stands in for the timid person.

Synonyms: cowardly, timid

Antonyms: brave, courageous