chicken-livered

adjective

ˈchi-kən-ˌli-vərd How to pronounce chicken-livered (audio)
Definition of chicken-liverednext
as in afraid
having or showing a shameful lack of courage a chicken-livered newspaper editor who has been afraid to take on the town's powerful business elite

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for chicken-livered
  1. afraid
  2. yellow
  3. scared
  4. frightened
  5. careful
  6. pusillanimous
  7. unheroic
  8. cowardly
Adjective
  • The kind who drive across town for the right crust and aren't afraid to wait for it.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 30 July 2026
  • Don’t be afraid to volunteer for a responsibility that scares you a little.
    — Valerie Mesa, PEOPLE, 29 July 2026
Definition of afraid
Adjective
  • The yellow metal has endured a tough six months, sitting well below its all-time high achieved earlier this year after a blistering rally that extended through and beyond 2025.
    — Joseph Wilkins, CNBC, 4 Aug. 2026
  • Rooms in shades of red, yellow, or beige have Cubist-style furniture and original artwork.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 4 Aug. 2026
Definition of yellow
Adjective
  • Ormund seemingly isn’t scared to learn that enough soldiers to fill a basketball arena are about to bang down the door.
    — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 3 Aug. 2026
  • Most of the world was fumbling and scared, and Fauci seemed to have some idea of what to do.
    — Amy Davidson Sorkin, New Yorker, 1 Aug. 2026
Definition of scared
Adjective
  • Perreault-Magny said frightened and flustered migrants sometimes try to climb into his unmarked patrol pickup, mistaking it for a smuggler coming to collect them.
    — Trevor Hughes, USA Today, 29 July 2026
  • Meanwhile, the people standing beside the robot look frightened.
    — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 29 July 2026
Definition of frightened
Adjective
  • However, Aldighieri advises marketers to be careful when changing tack.
    — Sam Birchall, Fortune, 30 July 2026
  • But Yoon is careful, with his characteristically spare, visceral imagery, to establish Etna’s early happiness.
    — Rachel Vorona Cote, The Atlantic, 30 July 2026
Definition of careful
Adjective
  • Some also have lost lawyers, dismayed by the pusillanimous behavior of their leaders.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2025
  • The second believed the United States could attain comprehensive security through military-technological means and saw diplomacy as a quixotic or pusillanimous enterprise that dishonored and weakened the country.
    — A. Wess Mitchell, Foreign Affairs, 22 Apr. 2025
Definition of pusillanimous
Adjective
  • Yes, Arsenal fan Neel from New Delhi held his nerve on the final day to shake off the persistent and heroic challenge of six-year-old Wilfred — and the meandering, distinctly unheroic challenge of a 51-year-old journalist.
    — Oliver Kay, New York Times, 26 May 2026
  • That larger significance is remarkably unheroic and fatalistic.
    — Gabriel Winslow-Yost, Harper's Magazine, 23 Sep. 2024
Definition of unheroic
Adjective
  • The trans actor Elliot Page plays Sinon, a poor boy from Ithaca who is brave enough to travel with Odysseus in place of the cowardly aristocrat Antinous, played by Robert Pattinson.
    — Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 24 July 2026
  • Weiss, Maher says, told him her internal critics are too cowardly to say anything to her face.
    — Aidan McLaughlin, Vanity Fair, 23 July 2026
Definition of cowardly
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

Chicken Littles
chicken-livered
chicken (out)
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Chicken-livered.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/chicken-livered. Accessed 5 Aug. 2026.

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