Definitions
Etymologies
- The first known use of lily-livered was in 1605. From the medieval belief that the liver was the seat of courage, and the pale color of the lily flower. A person who had no blood in their liver would have no courage and would thus be a coward. (Wiktionary)
- From lily, pale, bloodless. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The Guardian staff are described as "lily-livered gits hiding in their glass offices.”
“I believe that much of the low-level unpleasantness that you describe being visited upon you at large gatherings in the UK is precisely the result of lily-livered enforcement and presecution of such offences.”
“Compromise can be, and often is, the path of least resistance, the province of the mealy-mouthed, weak-kneed, and lily-livered.”
“No. Oh, I am sure that there will be those who will defend this type of thing because when we are fighting terrorism all bets are off and that only lily-livered bleeding hearts would worry about things like the rule of law or other such silliness.”
“President Obama is supposed to be a lily-livered liberal bleeding heart who wouldn't harm a fly on behalf of our citizens -- didn't he bow and scrape his way through Europe?”
“They're weak and lily-livered," Michael Clayton, a 54-year-old security consultant in Allen, Texas, said of GOP lawmakers who have worked toward a compromise on deficit reduction.”
The Wall Street Journal: Public Tilts Toward Debt-Cap Compromise
“You are a terrorist-shill with an agenda of 'Israel first and last'and you are a lily-livered coward.”
“Err, no: remember, Cuban troops were in Angola in the 1980s, Mozambique was Marxist, SWAPO was at least socialist and backed by Angola, and the ANC and SA Communist Party were joined at the hip [plus, the SACP was not one of yer lily-livered Eurocommunist parties: it was very hardline, even durign the Gorbachev era].”
“He would nevertheless be as likely to be labeled a lily-livered pacifist, or terrorist enabler, as the rest of them.”
The Huffington Post: Cynthia Wachtell: An American Tradition of War and War Protest
“Otherwise he was a lily-livered something or other—several expletives deleted.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lily-livered’.
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Hyphen-hyphen
A list of interesting words incorporating a hyphen
cat's-paw, sea-mew, kiss-me-quick, kiss-ass, yellow-bellied, lily-livered, hush-hush, hugger-mugger, fox-trot, super-duper, fuddy-duddy, boogie-woogie and 33 more...
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Choi inspired
Fun words my friend loves and others I introduced to him.
Namby-pamby, Niminy piminy, Nitpick, Nit-wit, Piggly-wiggly, Ping-pong, Pitter-patter, Raggle-taggle, Riff-raff, zoot suit, zig-zag, wishy-washy and 73 more...
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You loser!
indolent, persona non grata, addled, prolix, otiose, insipid, myopic, sophomoric, sequacious, ragabash, jolterhead, sleathy and 26 more...
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anatomopeia
Sounds like you are .........
green-fingered, lily-livered, yellow-bellied, bleary-eyed, hare-brained, loose-tongued, tongue-tied, sure-footed, two-faced, double-jointed, light-fingered, bone idle and 71 more...
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135 Offensive Shakespearean Terms
135 Offensive Shakespearean Terms =)
artless, baggage, barnacle, bawdy, beef-witted, bladder, boil-brained, bootless, brazen, cankerblossom, churlish, churrish and 123 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Kaichi's Wordie Darlings, or I'm a Lo...
persnickety, discombobulated, braggadoccio, anthropomorphous, antelucan, confluxible, anomalous, poseur, gallivant, poppycock, falderal, gewgaw and 705 more...
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thou varlet!
insults that roll trippingly off the tongue
varlet, addlepated, knucklehead, schmuck, ignoramus, bedlamite, nincompoop, nitwit, knave, bungler, blockhead, galoot and 91 more...
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chromatic phrases
blue movie, brown study, purple prose, rosy scenario, golden mean, eminence grise, white nights, bronze age, silver bullet, orange juice, black death, technicolor yawn and 188 more...
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Useful Words
I can use these.
aptronym, haplology, ectopia, folderol, volute, caryatid, spandrel, pendulous, miasmic, gelid, dotty, anomie and 256 more...
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gleaned words
found words, that haven't found their proper place yet.
juggernaut, panopticon, superfluous, verfremdung, aleatory, googlewhack, palimpsest, petrosomatoglyph, epibiont, solipsism, zugzwang, ubiquitous and 500 more...
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Ye Olde Shouting Match
From a list of insulting words that you might encounter in a Middle English shouting match.
The list was given to me by my English teacher.bawdy, bunch-backed, canker-blossom, brazen, clay-brained, clotpole, churlish, dog-hearted, crutch, distempered, empty-hearted, cutpurse and 78 more...
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jabberwordie
elby-bone, nerble, chickenbutt, luff, ya-cha-cha-cha, yanno, prolly, embiggen, vittles, hoobedoo, thing-a-ma-jig, sticky bun and 77 more...
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susannah's list
kookenhaken, caucas, zephyr, feigning
linoleum, mantra, lily-livered, rapture, gruel, velvet, ripchord, fade, scoff, gibe, temperament, manifestation and 15 more...
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L is for La Ti Da
My L Words
la ti da, lady, lady killer, lagoon, lazybones, leapfrog, lederhosen, librarian, library, lickety-split, lion-hearted, lionhearted and 34 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lily-livered.
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