poltroonery

English

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

Noun

poltroonery (uncountable)

1. Cowardice; want of spirit; pusillanimity.
   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. IX, Abbot Samson

     Genius, Poet: do we know what these words mean? […] Nature’s own sacred voice heard once more athwart the dreary boundless element of hearsaying and canting, of twaddle and poltroonery, in which the bewildered Earth, nigh perishing, has lost its way.

References

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