PUSILLANIMOUS • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Pusillanimous

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/pjusəlˈænəməs/ Listen

adjective

Pusillanimous adj.

Destitute of a manly or courageous strength and firmness of mind; of weak spirit; mean-spirited; spiritless; cowardly; said of persons, as, a pusillanimous prince.

Evincing, or characterized by, weakness of mind, and want of courage; feeble; as, pusillanimous counsels. "A low and pusillanimous spirit."

Synonyms: Cowardly; dastardly; mean-spirited; fainthearted; timid; weak; feeble.

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Etymology of 'Pusillanimous'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pusillanimous" Quotes from Famous Books

... miserable, pusillanimous reprobates did not know it as well as you!" spluttered Mrs. Wynn, with her apron to her eyes. Clemence's white face, with its appealing look, had gone straight to her motherly heart. "The unfeeling creatures, to take away a girl's character, like that! There had ought ...

— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... Amid sly, pusillanimous Spoiled children most degenerate And tiresome rogues ridiculous And stupid censors passionate; Amid coquettes who pray to God And abject slaves who kiss the rod; In haunts of fashion where each day All with urbanity ...

— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... resistance, and this is one reason why shyness is often so conspicuous, seeming deliberately to court an avoidable confusion. Over and over again it forces the recalcitrant body back into the arena, preferring repeated humiliation to a pusillanimous surrender. People often wonder at the recklessness with which the shy expose themselves to disaster, forgetting that in this insistence of a soul under discomfiture, there is evidence of a moral strength which is its ...

— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... universal, reprobation. Some blamed the proposed deed because it was barbarous and a foul example to set before a race half barbarous itself; others because it was illegal; others again because, in the face of so weak an enemy, it appeared pitifully pusillanimous; almost all because it tended to precipitate and embitter war. In the midst of the turmoil he had raised, and under the immediate pressure of certain indignant white residents, the baron fell back upon a new expedient, certainly ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... barricadoed the quarter of the Colonna—that the bell of the Capitol sounded—that Rienzi addressed the People—that they were silent and inactive—and that Rienzi then abdicated the government. But for this he calls Rienzi "pusillanimous." Is not that epithet to be applied to the People? Rienzi invoked them to move against the Robber—the People refused to obey. Rienzi wished to fight—the People refused to stir. It was not the cause of Rienzi alone which demanded their exertions—it was the cause of the ...

— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

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