Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A man lacking courage and other qualities deemed manly.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A piece of bread sopped in milk.
- n. A soft, effeminate, girlish man; one who is devoid of manliness: a term of contempt.
Wiktionary
- n. A weak, easily frightened or ineffectual person.
- n. A piece of bread sopped in milk.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A piece of bread sopped in milk; figuratively, an effeminate or weak-minded person.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a timid man or boy considered childish or unassertive
Examples
“Detmar is the sort of chap who would once have been described as a milksop; when Issie met him in 1988 he was 25, but so close to his mother he used to shop for her sanitary towels.”
The Guardian: Blow by Blow: The Story of Isabella Blow by Detmar Blow
“But even the most foolish swaggerer of them could not call milksop a man who could outride, outleap, outfence, outhunt him; who could drive the four horses of his coach to London and back at such a pace and in such a manner as made purple-faced old stage-coach drivers shake their heads with glee, and who, in a wrestling-match, could break a man's back at a throw if he chose to be unmerciful.”
“Suckling is a nickname applied to a helpless person; cf. Littlechild and "milksop," which still exists, though rare, in the forms Milsopp and Mellsop.”
“Riley called him "milksop," and "sap-head"; words which seemed to the dull intellect of King Pewee exceedingly witty.”
“My young companions, who, as I have observed, had only preceded me six months in the service, were already grown old in depravity; they laughed at my squeamishness, called me, "milksop" and”
“My young companions, who, as I have observed, had only preceded me six months in the service, were already grown old in depravity; they laughed at my squeamishness, called me "milksop" and "boarding-school miss," and soon made me as bad as themselves.”
“And Giles had always thought it rather far-fetched that a milksop like Desmond would have committed cold-blooded murder.”
“It's clear from the outset that Myra is quite mad, and even when the source of her madness is revealed, it doesn't make one feel any more sympathy for her, or for her milksop of a husband.”
“One way of ensuring that didn't happen was to put God – not some milksop supreme being but a proper, stormy God – back into buildings.”
“Why then is the News a milksop and apologist for the New York City Police Department?”
The Huffington Post: Len Levitt: The Daily News and the NYPD: Blinded by Love
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘milksop’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 1128 more...
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Figuratively
Words with definitions containing "figuratively."
spore, plunge, fulminate, rasp, hinge, niche, breathe, approach, hammer, rain, butcher, dazzle and 128 more...
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