craven
pronunciation
How to pronounce craven in British English:
UK [ˈkreɪvn]
How to pronounce craven in American English:
US [ˈkrevən]
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- Noun:
- an abject coward
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- Adjective:
- lacking even the rudiments of courage; abjectly fearful
Word Origin
- craven
- craven: [13] Craven originally meant simply ‘defeated’, and only gradually came to have the pejorative sense ‘cowardly’. It probably came from Old French cravante ‘defeated’, the past participle of the verb cravanter, which in turn came via Vulgar Latin *crepantāre from Latin crepāre; this meant ‘creak, rattle, crack’ (hence the English technical term crepitation [17]) but also secondarily ‘burst’ or ‘break’.=> crepitation, crevice, decrepit
- craven (adj.)
- early 13c., cravant, perhaps from Old French crevante "defeated," past participle of cravanter "to strike down, to fall down," from Latin crepare "to crack, creak." Sense affected by crave and moved from "defeated" to "cowardly" (c. 1400) perhaps via intermediary sense of "confess oneself defeated." Related: Cravenly; cravenness.
Synonym
Example
- 1. Craven : the beijing paralympic games were the most grandiose .
- 2. The relationship was sometimes friendly , sometimes tense , but always close-and rarely craven on the part of the media firm .
- 3. Russia 's contemporary intelligentsia-the should-be followers of the example of solzhenitsyn , sakharov and the other dissident intellectuals of the soviet period-is not just supine but in some ways craven ( see article ) .
- 4. Mr craven doesn 't want you to wander all over the house !
- 5. If mr singh pulls back hard on reforms , he will look craven and cowed by an ally a tenth his party 's size .