chicken-hearted adj.
cowardly.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Why Come Ye Nat to Courte? line 167: They kepe them in theyr holdes Lyke hen-herted cokoldes. | |
| Colyn Cloute (1550) Bi: Now be it they are good men Moche herted lyke an hen. | |
| Match in Newgate V iii: Was there ever such a chicken-hearted Son of a Whore? | |
| Dict. Canting Crew. | |
| New Canting Dict. | |
| Grobianus 130: Don’t trifle (like a Chicken-hearted Slave). | |
| Clarissa VII 215: He’ll soon get the better of this chicken-hearted fellow, never fear. | |
| Reprisal II iv: I grow quite chicken-hearted in his absence. | |
| Sir Launcelot Greaves I 41: Crowe [...] damned him for a chicken-hearted lubber. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | April-Day Act I: Our don’s a dolt, a vain chick-hearted bully. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Freeman’s Jrnl (Phila., PA) 21 Aug. 1/2: The poor chicken-hearted creatures cryed out to the potent king of England to take them under his wings. | |
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Sporting Mag. May XIV 112/2: Those chicken-hearted elves, / Who love in others what they’d fear themselves. | |
| (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 81: Never mind, Gil Blas, thought I, do not be chicken-hearted. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | St Ronan’s Well (1833) 118: Mick you are right, and I am a scrupulous, chicken-hearted fool. | |
| Heart of London III iii: This Wilton must not live to blab, or he’ll tell all to-morrow, the chicken-hearted fool! | |
| Mariner’s Sketches 195: The Peruvian war brig [...] which these hen-hearted loons had taken for a pirate. | |
| Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. II 45: What has made you so chicken-hearted all at once? | |
| It Is Never Too Late to Mend II 81: How he trembles! Why, he must be chicken-hearted. | |
| Good for Nothing (1890) 211: He’d been talking to me so chicken-hearted. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Term of His Natural Life (1897) 286: It isn’t my fault, Mr. North [...] I didn’t know that the lad was chicken-hearted. | |
| Treasure Island 30: Small thanks to you big, hulking, chicken-hearted men. | |
| Autobiog. of a Gipsey 101: He were a chicken-hearted one with all his bluster when he weren’t posh motto [drunk]. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 16: Chicken Hearted, want of pluck, cowardly. | |
| Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 31 Aug. 12/2: ‘That idiot, that dunder-headed, chicken-hearted Snarley [...] damn him!’. | |
| Dock Rats of N.Y. (2006) 51: I’m only telling yer the truth; yer a chicken-hearted lot, and losing all yer game; for what? the pretty face of a she-devil! | |
| ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 218: chicken-hearted, hen-hearted, cowardly. ‘Come on! don’t get chicken-hearted.’. | |
| ‘Boob Spelled Backward’ in Humoresque 244: That’s your trouble, Sam; you’re so chicken-hearted. | |
| Chicago May (1929) 153: It doesn’t do to be too chicken-hearted when you are a crook. | |
| On Broadway 3 Apr. [synd. col.] When chicken-hearted editors don’t hurt their own paper, they help a rival organ. | |
| Real Cool Killers (1969) 50: Let ’em cut the black mother-raper’s throat [...] That chicken-hearted bastard ain’t no good to us. | |
| Pimp 62: You dumb chicken-hearted bitch. | |
| Picture Palace 286: Identifying myself with her in the way chicken-hearted biographers did with their subjects. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 79: Variations include chicken-hearted, chicken-livered, chicken-spirited, and hen-hearted. | |
| Daughters of Cain (1995) 45: He handed across a postcard marking the relevant page of notes [...] including a chicken-hearted comment on Glubit. | |
| Times (2) 30 Apr. 7: Chicken-hearted, craven, faceless cowards. |
In derivatives
cowardice.
 | ‘The Execution’ in Atlas 30 Nov. 762/2: Nor many a damn and many an oath, to roar were hundreds slow / ’Gainst him whose chickenheartedness stole from them half the show . | |
| Cock House Fellsgarth 202: Let no-one charge these boys with chicken-heartedness. | |
| Boston Post (MA) 15 Dec. 24/4: There is a certain chicken-heartedness in Capricorn people that they lught to work out of themselves. | |
| Princeton Union (MN) 20 June 4/3: This is no time for chicken-heartedness. |