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- Dictionarylily-livered/ˈlɪlɪlɪvəd/
adjective
- 1. weak and cowardly: "he hates lily-livered politicians and permissive judges"
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Lily-livered means lacking courage or cowardly. It comes from an old belief that a white liver, or lily-liver, was caused by a deficiency of yellow bile, the humor that governed anger and spirit.
adjective. literary uk / ˌlɪl.iˈlɪv.əd / us / ˌlɪl.iˈlɪv.ɚd / Add to word list. not brave. Synonyms. chicken child's word. cowardly disapproving. craven formal disapproving. fainthearted. pusillanimous formal. timid. timorous literary. weak-kneed informal disapproving. yellow (NOT BRAVE) informal. SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases.
Lily-livered is an adjective that means not brave or cowardly. It is a literary and formal word that can be used to describe someone who is afraid or timid. See synonyms, antonyms and usage examples from various sources.
Lily-livered definition: weak or lacking in courage; cowardly; pusillanimous.. See examples of LILY-LIVERED used in a sentence.
Almost any idiom serves as an example – ‘cloud cuckoo land‘, ‘fancy-free‘, ‘hat trick‘ and so on, but ‘lily-livered’ must seem especially opaque to non-English speakers endeavouring to learn the language.
Jun 2, 2024 · lily-livered (comparative more lily-livered, superlative most lily-livered) Cowardly, lacking courage.
Lily-livered means cowardly or timid, and is often used to criticize someone's lack of courage. The word comes from Shakespeare's Macbeth and has synonyms such as yellow or scared.
