milquetoast

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noun milque·toast \ ˈmilk-ˌtōst \

Updated on: 9 Aug 2017

Definition of milquetoast

:a timid, meek, or unassertive person

milquetoast was our Word of the Day on 05/26/2016. Hear the podcast!

Recent Examples of milquetoast from the Web

This off-season is what the league needed after a milquetoast postseason that was soured by an overwhelming feeling of inevitability.

— rohan nadkarni, SI.com, "Welcome To The Weapons Race Era Of The NBA," 6 July 2017
And at that point, candidates aren’t winning based on their charming personalities and milquetoast politics.

— graham vyse, New Republic, "Do the Democrats Know How to Win Anymore?," 22 June 2017
Though he was maligned as a milquetoast patsy, Alan Colmes’s run as the original Fox News liberal looks better in retrospect.

— graham vyse, New Republic, "The Decline of the Fox News Liberal Pundit," 24 May 2017
Today, more than half of the cars and trucks for sale boast as much power or more, including the milquetoast Kia Sorento.

— david ingold, The Seattle Times, "Innovations make America’s cars faster yet more efficient," 21 May 2017
Today, more than half of the cars and trucks for sale boast as much power or more, including the milquetoast Kia Sorento.

— david ingold, The Seattle Times, "Innovations make America’s cars faster yet more efficient," 21 May 2017
Today, more than half of the cars and trucks for sale boast as much power or more, including the milquetoast Kia Sorento.

— kyle stock, Bloomberg.com, "America’s Cars Are Suddenly Getting Faster and More Efficient," 17 May 2017
For 30 years we’ve been forced to hear this milquetoast song salad.

— kevin cusick, Twin Cities, "The Loop Ten: 4-5-17," 5 Apr. 2017
Before the election of Donald Trump, Schiff was known in Washington as a milquetoast moderate.

— ryan lizza, The New Yorker, "The Unlikely Liberal Hero Adam Schiff Is Ready to Investigate Trump," 14 Mar. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'milquetoast.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Why is it milquetoast, and not milk toast?

Caspar Milquetoast was a comic strip character created in 1924 by the American cartoonist Harold T. Webster. The strip, called "The Timid Soul," ran every Sunday in the New York Herald Tribune for many years. Webster, who claimed that Milquetoast was a self-portrait, summed up the character as "the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick." The earliest examples for Milquetoast used as a generic synonym for "timid person" date from the mid-1930s. Caspar's last name might remind you of "milk toast," a bland concoction of buttered toast served in a dish of warm milk.