Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Exhibiting the characteristics of a coward, particularly ignoble fear.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Wanting courage to face danger, or to incur harm or pain; timid; timorous; fearful; pusillanimous.
  • Proceeding from fear of danger or harm; mean; base; befitting a coward: as, a cowardly action.
  • Synonyms Dastardly, craven, faint-hearted, chicken-hearted.
  • In the manner of a coward; dishonorably; basely.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Wanting courage; basely or weakly timid or fearful; pusillanimous; spiritless.
  • adjective Proceeding from fear of danger or other consequences; befitting a coward; dastardly; base.
  • adverb In the manner of a coward.

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

  • adverb In the manner of a coward.
  • adjective Showing cowardice. Lacking in courage, unacceptably fearful, usually meant with some implication of a lack of consideration for others.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective lacking courage; ignobly timid and faint-hearted

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From coward +‎ -ly.

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