Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A sneaking, malicious coward.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make dastard; intimidate; dispirit.
- To call one dastard or coward.
- noun A dullard; a simpleton.
- noun A base coward; a poltroon; one who meanly shrinks from danger, or who performs malicious actions in a cowardly, sneaking manner.
- noun Synonyms Poltroon, Craven, etc. See
coward . - Characterized by base cowardice; meanly shrinking from danger, or from the consequences of malicious acts.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Meanly shrinking from danger; cowardly; dastardly.
- noun One who meanly shrinks from danger; an arrant coward; a poltroon.
- transitive verb rare To dastardize.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A malicious
coward ; adishonorable sneak . - adjective
meanly shrinking fromdanger ,cowardly ,dastardly - verb To
dastardize .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective despicably cowardly
- noun a despicable coward
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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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:
A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Edward Payson Roe 1863
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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 2009
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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 2009
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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 2009
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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 2009
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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 2009
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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).
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
milosrdenstvi commented on the word dastard
Which explains someone being dastardly.
August 23, 2008
bilby commented on the word dastard
Drat Saddam, a mad dastard!
October 18, 2008
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
"... 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