chicken-heartedness love

chicken-heartedness

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The quality of being chicken-hearted; cowardice

Etymologies

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Examples

  • This chicken-heartedness, as he dubbed it, disgusted Martin, who consequently took a satisfaction in compelling the boy to assist him actively whenever there were cattle to be dehorned, wire rings to be pushed through bunches of pigs 'snouts, calves to be delivered by force, young stuff to be castrated or butchering to be done.

    Dust 1921

  • This chicken-heartedness, as he dubbed it, disgusted Martin, who consequently took a satisfaction in compelling the boy to assist him actively whenever there were cattle to be dehorned, wire rings to be pushed through bunches of pigs 'snouts, calves to be delivered by force, young stuff to be castrated or butchering to be done.

    Dust Marcet Haldeman-Julius 1914

  • Let no one charge these boys with chicken-heartedness.

    The Cock-House at Fellsgarth Talbot Baines Reed 1872

  • "Jimmy Wigley's gone home with more scrip than he ever got at once before; and if your chicken-heartedness hadn't taken the wrong direction, Miss Craydocke, I should be perfectly at ease in my mind."

    A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. 1865

  • I put this down at first to sheer chicken-heartedness, and thought it augured ill for my enterprise; but presently remarking that he made no attempt to draw back, and that though the sweat stood on his brow he set about such preparations as were necessary -- remembering also how long and kindly, and without pay or guerdon, he had served my mother, I began to see that here was something phenomenal; a man strange and beyond the ordinary, of whom it was impossible to predicate what he would do when he came to be tried.

    A Gentleman of France Stanley John Weyman 1891

  • The wrangle caused by Pin’s chicken-heartedness lasted the sisters down the garden-path, across the road, and over into the precincts of a large, public park.

    The Getting of Wisdom 2003

  • Indians, who, being a mild race, had hired an Arab butcher to do the deed of blood; and he aroused all Shaykh Nur’s ire by his taunting comments upon the chicken-heartedness of the men of Hind.

    Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah 2003

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