Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A base coward: "Every moment of the fashion industry's misery is richly deserved by the designers . . . and magazine poltroons who perpetuate this absurd creation” ( Nina Totenberg).
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. An ignoble or total coward; a dastard; a mean-spirited wretch.
- adj. Cowardly.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Base; vile; contemptible; cowardly.
- n. An arrant coward; a dastard; a craven; a mean-spirited wretch.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A lazy, idle fellow; a sluggard; a fellow without spirit or courage; a dastard; a coward.
- n. Synonyms Craven, Dastard, etc. See coward.
- Base; cowardly; contemptible.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adj. characterized by complete cowardliness
- n. an abject coward
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
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Being dismissed as a liar and poltroon translates to “respect”?
Think Progress » Pentagon Shooter Was Right-Wing, Anti-Government Terrorist
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Abraham Lincoln was called a poltroon, a hypocrite, because he was deliberate, painstaking and cautious about issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
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Tyrrell is best known now as an insane Clinton-basher, but he became sort of famous in the '70s by fancying himself the reincarnation of H.L. Mencken, writing a lot of Carter-bashing columns where he called everyone a "poltroon" or "the honorable" something.
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I will call the poltroon in the White House scum, however.)
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It doesn't matter what kind of poltroon parks his or her butt in the Oval Office, or how they get in there; they will be presented to the people as a figure of moral authority and gravitas -- and be accepted as such by large swathes of the public.
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"Plague on it!" cried Telemachus, laying the bow aside with an air of vexation, "must I be called a poltroon all my life, or is it that I have not yet attained the full measure of my strength?
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“The only way someone will ever get through to a “suck on this, filthy shvatz goyim!” poltroon like Tom Friedman is if they do a Danny Pearl on him.”
Matthew Yglesias » Peres: Gaza Operation is Collective Punishment, and I Love It
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The only way someone will ever get through to a “suck on this, filthy shvatz goyim!” poltroon like Tom Friedman is if they do a Danny Pearl on him.
Matthew Yglesias » Peres: Gaza Operation is Collective Punishment, and I Love It
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You are scarcely better than your chancellor, who is a thief and a poltroon!
David Cameron quotes Benny Hill song, but it's not the PM's greatest hit
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In the end, though, we can hardly blame the old poltroon for trying it on via his lawyer over the Culshaw fiasco.
jodi commented on the word poltroon
Dickens, via http://thepenguinblog.typepad.com/the_penguin_blog/2011/07/doing-dickens.html
July 16, 2011
avivamagnolia commented on the word poltroon
Base; vile; contemptible; cowardly. French poltron, from Italian poltrone: an idle fellow, sluggard, coward. poltro: idle, lazy. An arrant coward; a dastard; a craven; a mean-spirited wretch.
January 19, 2009
yarb commented on the word poltroon
"Man, man! did I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swear thou wert a poltroon."
- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 133
July 31, 2008