timorous
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed into late Middle English from Old French temoros, from Medieval Latin timorosus, from Latin timor (“fear”), from timeō (“I fear”). Doublet of timoroso.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /ˈtɪməɹəs/, /ˈtɪmɹəs/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Adjective
[edit]timorous (comparative more timorous, superlative most timorous)
- Fearful; afraid; timid.
- 1534 (date written; published 1553), Thomas More, “A Dyalogue of Comforte agaynste Tribulacyon, […]. XVI. Of Hym that were Moued to Kyl Himself by Illusion of the Dyuel, which He Rekened for a Reuelation.”, in Wyllyam Rastell [i.e., William Rastell], editor, The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, […], London: […] Iohn Cawod, Iohn Waly, and Richarde Tottell, published 30 April 1557, →OCLC, pages 1195–1196:
- He [the Devil] marketh well […] mennes complexions within thẽ [them], health, or ſicknes, good humours or badde, by which they be light hearted or lumpiſh, ſtrong hearted, or faynt & fieble of ſpirite, bolde and hardy, or timorous and fearefull of courage.
- 1786, Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, volume I, Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] John Wilson, →OCLC; reprinted Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] James M‘Kie, 1867, →OCLC:
- Wee sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie, / Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!
- 1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Days of Imprisonment”, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC, book II (The Earth under the Martians), page 219:
- [H]e was one of those weak creatures full of a shifty cunning - who face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves, void of pride, timorous, anæmic, hateful souls.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
- He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly.
- 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC:
- The suspect was a man of forty, with a grey, timorous face, dressed only in a ragged longyi kilted to the knee, beneath which his lank, curved shins were specked with tick-bites.
Synonyms
[edit]Antonyms
[edit]- (antonym(s) of “fearful”): daredevil, dauntless, reckless, untimorous
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]fearful, timid
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References
[edit]- James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Timorous”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume X, Part 1 (Ti–U), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 46, column 1.
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Medieval Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English doublets
- English 3-syllable words
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
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- English lemmas
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- en:Fear
- en:Personality