Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A sneaking, malicious coward.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A malicious coward; a dishonorable sneak.
- adj. meanly shrinking from danger, cowardly, dastardly
- v. To dastardize.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Meanly shrinking from danger; cowardly; dastardly.
- n. One who meanly shrinks from danger; an arrant coward; a poltroon.
- transitive v. To dastardize.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A dullard; a simpleton.
- n. A base coward; a poltroon; one who meanly shrinks from danger, or who performs malicious actions in a cowardly, sneaking manner.
- n. Synonyms Poltroon, Craven, etc. See coward.
- Characterized by base cowardice; meanly shrinking from danger, or from the consequences of malicious acts.
- To make dastard; intimidate; dispirit.
- To call one dastard or coward.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adj. despicably cowardly
- n. a despicable coward
Etymologies
Examples
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“Let not thy mind be overmuch crossed by unwise men at thronged meetings of folk; for oft these speak worse than they wot of; lest thou be called a dastard, and art minded to think that thou art even as is said; slay such an one on another day, and so reward his ugly talk.
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"dastard," but he coolly waited until Haldane had finished, and then asked in his former tone:
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Deeming the man who would not fight on provocation a dastard, when brought to the test it seemed wrong that he should fight.
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I'm certain his dead ex-wife haunts him nightly for being such a dastard.
Tom McIntyre Explains His Picks for our 2009 Hunting and Fishing Heroes and Villians Face-Off
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The coyote, in this case, is the world's greatest super-villain, a bald, barrel-chested, Eastern-European-accented dastard named Gru (voiced by Steve Carrell).
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The coyote, in this case, is the world's greatest super-villain, a bald, barrel-chested, Eastern-European-accented dastard named Gru voiced by Steve Carrell.
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I can't think of any other reason they might rate this disturbing romp through the Joker's dastard deeds as PG-13.
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Zardari, the dastard prince of Pakistan and widower to the assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is certainly no saint.
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In others, one is dumped square into the racket that is the dastard American health insurance market.
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No one who ever watched a match scratched their head and wondered who was the dastard and who was the darling.
bilby commented on the word dastard
"... only that name remains;
The cruelty and envy of the people,
Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest,
And suffer'd me by the voice of slaves to be
Whoop'd out of Rome."
- William Shakespeare, 'The Tragedy of Coriolanus'.
August 29, 2009
qroqqa commented on the word dastard
Exact words were never spoken, but Miss Christie had come to live in the belief that Miss Nicholl and Mrs. Hazelton had grown up together, would in fact have made a joint debut had it not been for the death of Miss Nicholl's father, too innocent a soul to mistrust the dastard who managed his financial affairs; so Miss Nicholl had had to go to work and, naturally, her path had split wide from Mrs. Hazelton's.
—Dorothy Parker, 'The Bolt behind the Blue'
November 12, 2008
bilby commented on the word dastard
Drat Saddam, a mad dastard!
October 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dastard
Which explains someone being dastardly.
August 23, 2008
brtom commented on the word dastard
"My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her."
Joyce, Ulysses, 15
February 5, 2007