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Timid and timorous don't just have similar spellings and meanings; they are etymologically related as well. Both words ultimately derive from the Latin verb timēre, meaning "to fear." The immediate ancestor of timid is Latin timidus (with the same meaning as timid), whereas timorous traveled to Middle English by way of the Latin noun timor ("fear") and the Medieval Latin adjective timorosus. Timid may be the more common of the two words, but timorous is older. It first appeared in English in the mid-15th century; timid came on the scene a century later. Both words can mean "easily frightened" (as in "a timid mouse" or "a timorous child") as well as "indicating or characterized by fear" (as in "he gave a timid smile" or "she took a timorous step forward").

Examples of timorous in a Sentence

a shy and timorous teenager He spoke with a timorous voice.

Recent Examples on the Web Abetted by the timorous LeFou (a funny John Sygar), Gaston schemes to bend Belle to his will. — Washington Post, 14 Nov. 2021 All artists, even those who appear to be timorous, quavering messes, have a core of steel. — David Salle, The New York Review of Books, 17 Dec. 2020 All artists, even those who appear to be timorous, quavering messes, have a core of steel. — David Salle, The New York Review of Books, 17 Dec. 2020 All artists, even those who appear to be timorous, quavering messes, have a core of steel. — David Salle, The New York Review of Books, 17 Dec. 2020 Orange County’s chief health officer quit after receiving death threats and little backing from a timorous Board of Supervisors. — Los Angeles Times, 18 June 2021 There will always be a name to erase or a symbol to obliterate, and there will always be timorous functionaries willing to accommodate the ideological enforcers demanding it. — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 13 June 2021 The former Indiana governor excoriated the timorous, risk-averse mindset that captured much of the elite in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. — Gerard Baker, WSJ, 31 May 2021 The trick for Biden and the Democrats is to welcome timorous conservatives like Sasse back to the world of defenders of democracy without demanding humiliating public confessions from them. — Walter Shapiro, The New Republic, 28 Dec. 2020 See More

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