Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having a belly that is yellow or yellowish. Used of certain birds, for example.
- adj. Slang Cowardly.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having the belly yellow, or having yellow on the abdomen: specific in phrase-names of many different animals: as, the yellow-bellied flycatcher, Empidonax flaviventris; the yellow-bellied woodpecker, Sphyropicus varius. See cut under sap-sucker.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of an animal or reptile having a yellow underside or belly.
- adj. figuratively Uncourageous, cowardly.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. easily frightened
Etymologies
- From yellow belly (yellowbelly) (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Olive-backed Sunbird, Cinnyris jugularis formerly, Nectarinia jugularis; protonym; Certhia jugularis, also known as the yellow-bellied sunbird, photographed at Langkawi, the Jewel of Kedah, Malaysia.”
The Guardian: Mystery bird: olive-backed sunbird, Cinnyris jugularis
“The snake is, depending on the source, an olive whipsnake (which is venomous) or a yellow-bellied puffing snake (Pseustes sulphureus) which is not.”
“Lindsey Graham is just another pink-faced, yellow-bellied HYPOCRITE who only remains in power due to the overwhelming majority of white-trash redneck voters in SC (the same ones with the Confederate flags in their front yards and the plastic Jesuses on their mantles).”
“The conical nose of the Pelamis, a name borrowed from the yellow-bellied sea snake, looks menacingly like a missile on land.”
The Guardian: SNP hopes a new wave can carry Scotland to independence
“He's a yellow-bellied crud-grabber who wallows on the bottom of the GOP cesspool.”
“Now let me tell you the real answer: You're a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward.”
“It appears as if the "crusade" by the radicalized christian right and its yellow-bellied buddies on republican talk radio, is starting to backfire, and these numbers for Palin just tend to confirm it.”
“The whole British sitting volleyball squad are a bunch of yellow-bellied moaners, and Martine Wright, wife, mother, budding Paralympic athlete, the worst injured female survivor of Britain's most terrible terrorist act ever, what a lily-livered, chicken-hearted coward she is.”
The Guardian: Martine Wright: 7/7, survival – and a whole new life of opportunities
“In this edition: we have Harry Reid going yellow-bellied on the Cordoba House, Aqua Buddha worship, a zonked out Ben Quayle, John McCain going goo-goo eyed over Snooki, and Basil Marceaux -- whose internet prank campaign actually seems to be making more sense, compared to everyone else.”
The Huffington Post: Midterm Madness, Part Three: August And Everything After
“Increasingly, short winters have meant that yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris) near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory now emerge 20 days earlier from their seven - to eight-month hibernation than they did in the late '70s.”
The Huffington Post: Colorado Marmot Population Expanding Rapidly
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘yellow-bellied’.
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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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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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Winter's Bone vocabulary
Study list of difficult words from Daniel Woodrell's novel Winter's Bone. In reverse order: start at the bottom to see words from the beginning of the novel!
plaid, lazy susan, lope, furtive, dour, scamper, hard-boiled, implacable, dainty, stomp, resignation, crank and 138 more...
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Insults
duffer, braggart, drivel, dunderhead, wastrel, cad, tit, eejit, bonehead, quean, parnel, scallywag and 5 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for yellow-bellied.

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