Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An utter coward.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A lazy, idle fellow; a sluggard; a fellow without spirit or courage; a dastard; a coward.
- noun Synonyms Craven, Dastard, etc. See
coward . - Base; cowardly; contemptible.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Base; vile; contemptible; cowardly.
- noun An arrant coward; a dastard; a craven; a mean-spirited wretch.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
ignoble ortotal coward ; adastard ; amean-spirited wretch . - adjective
Cowardly .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective characterized by complete cowardliness
- noun an abject 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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Being dismissed as a liar and poltroon translates to “respect”?
Think Progress » Pentagon Shooter Was Right-Wing, Anti-Government Terrorist 2010
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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.
Funditry Jaime J. Weinman 2004
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I will call the poltroon in the White House scum, however.)
Balkinization 2004
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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 2009
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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 2011
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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 2009
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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.
Eamonn Holmes gets the BBC jokes eating away at him banned 2010
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
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
jodi commented on the word poltroon
Dickens, via http://thepenguinblog.typepad.com/the_penguin_blog/2011/07/doing-dickens.html
July 16, 2011