as in afraid
having or showing a shameful lack of courage
vented his spleen at those milk-livered men who refused to fight for king and country
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for milk-livered
Adjective
-
The problem, at its core, is that people have been afraid to leave their homes to go to work as a result of the ICE surge.—
Conor Wight,
CBS News,
24 Mar. 2026 -
Meanwhile, some staff members, other career officials say, are afraid to voice dissenting views for fear of being fired.—
Avi Asher-Schapiro,
ProPublica,
24 Mar. 2026
Adjective
-
SkyEye was up over Falmouth, Massachusetts Tuesday, to capture the moment when a treasured yellow lab named Tessie was rescued from a deep backyard sinkhole.—
Juli McDonald,
CBS News,
25 Mar. 2026
-
These discrepancies across the series are a function of the verdigris, orange, green, blue, and yellow paint that frames the photographs, shifting one’s perception of the color register therein, even though the plates are themselves unaltered.—
Julian Stern,
Artforum,
24 Mar. 2026
Adjective
-
Camarillo, a substitute teacher, is also scared for her students.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
23 Mar. 2026
-
When people are scared to see their primary doctor for routine care like asthma check-ups with inhaler refills, illnesses advance and require more intense healthcare utilization.—
Dr. Lauren Palladino,
Hartford Courant,
22 Mar. 2026
Adjective
-
Chesney became frightened, scaled the enclosure wall and hopped over the fence.—
Hannah Kirby,
jsonline.com,
28 Mar. 2026
-
Scared and frightened, the only way to relieve the pain is to sell.—
,
CNBC,
27 Mar. 2026
Adjective
-
An assembly of planets in Aries moves through your twelfth house, stirring emotions behind the scenes and asking for careful tending.—
Kirah Tabourn,
Condé Nast Traveler,
28 Mar. 2026
-
To the begonia collectors out there, Begona Black Velvet, with large leaves that could have fallen from a maple tree, is worth a careful look.—
Joshua Siskin,
Oc Register,
28 Mar. 2026
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
Adjective
-
That larger significance is remarkably unheroic and fatalistic.—
Gabriel Winslow-Yost,
Harper's Magazine,
23 Sep. 2024
-
In the world of The Boys, based on the gleefully scabrous 2000s indie comic-book series of the same name by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson, superheroes are real, pop-culture-dominating, and with rare exceptions, entirely unheroic.—
Brian Hiatt,
Rolling Stone,
13 June 2024
Adjective
-
It’s populated by craven, cowardly traitors.—
Voice of the People,
New York Daily News,
25 Mar. 2026
-
Thomas Jefferson, the great hero of the Declaration of Independence, is shown as hypocritical, cowardly, manipulative, a schemer of every kind.—
David Frum,
The Atlantic,
25 Mar. 2026
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.
Cite this Entry
“Milk-livered.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/milk-livered. Accessed 31 Mar. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
