timorous
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed into late Middle English from Old French temoros, from Medieval Latin timorosus, from Latin timor (“fear”), from timeō (“I fear”). Doublet of timoroso.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
timorous (comparative more timorous, superlative most timorous)
- Fearful; afraid; timid.
- 1534 (date written; published 1553), Thomas More, “A Dyalogue of Comforte agaynste Tribulacyon, […]. XVI. Of Hym that were Moued to Kyl Himself by Illusion of the Dyuel, which He Rekened for a Reuelation.”, in Wyllyam Rastell [i.e., William Rastell], editor, The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, […], London: […] Iohn Cawod, Iohn Waly, and Richarde Tottell, published April 1557, →OCLC, pages 1195–1196:
- He [the Devil] marketh well […] mennes complexions within thẽ [them], health, or ſicknes, good humours or badde, by which they be light hearted or lumpiſh, ſtrong hearted, or faynt & fieble of ſpirite, bolde and hardy, or timorous and fearefull of courage.
- 1786, Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, volume I, Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] John Wilson, →OCLC; reprinted Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] James M‘Kie, 1867, →OCLC:
- Wee sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie, / Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!
- 1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Days of Imprisonment”, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC, book II (The Earth under the Martians), page 219:
- [H]e was one of those weak creatures full of a shifty cunning - who face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves, void of pride, timorous, anæmic, hateful souls.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
- He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly.
- 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC:
- The suspect was a man of forty, with a grey, timorous face, dressed only in a ragged longyi kilted to the knee, beneath which his lank, curved shins were specked with tick-bites.
Synonyms edit
Antonyms edit
- (antonym(s) of "fearful"): daredevil, dauntless, reckless, untimorous
Derived terms edit
Related terms edit
Translations edit
fearful, timid
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References edit
- James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Timorous”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes X, Part 1 (Ti–U), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 46, column 1.