recreant
Americanadjective
-
cowardly; faint-hearted
-
disloyal
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of recreant
1300–50; Middle English < Old French, adj. and noun use of present participle of recreire to yield in a contest, equivalent to re- re- + creire < Latin crēdere to believe
Explanation
A recreant is a heavy-duty coward. If your friend shoves you in front of him when a growling dog approaches, you'd quickly recognize him for the recreant that he is. And in the future you’d choose your friends more carefully. An extreme recreant would be the soldier who goes over to the enemy if it looks like they might win. Definitely not the kind of person you'd want in your platoon. Recreant (RE-cree-unt) comes from the Latin re-, meaning to "reverse" something, and credere, "entrust." The word miscreant is nearly synonymous, although a miscreant is not so much a coward, but just an all-around bad sort.
Vocabulary lists containing recreant
Believe It or Not: Cred
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 8
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
How our madness oft would prove Recreant to the law of love: Wrongs that men from men endure Doing Thee to death once more!
From The Visions of England Lyrics on leading men and events in English History by Morley, Henry
And the Lord said to me, Recreant Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.
From Jeremiah : Being The Baird Lecture for 1922 by Smith, George Adam, Sir
"Recreant knight! will you shrink from following where your lady leads?"
From David Elginbrod by MacDonald, George
Recreant, defeated, but still refusing aid, she had gone back to her land of flowers.
From The Girl at the Halfway House A Story of the Plains by Hough, Emerson
"Recreant," cried the khan, "you have forsaken the great goddess yourself, and you would now draw away her priestess."
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
