pigeon-livered
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of pigeon-livered
First recorded in 1595–1605
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.
“I am pigeon-livered and lack gall,” he laments.
From New York Times
Never was a Hamlet less pigeon-livered; yet never was there one who was less "the glass of fashion and the mold of form."
From Time Magazine Archive
Young, sensitive, delicate, he was like "A bud bit by an envious worm, Ere he could spread his sweet leaves to the air, Or dedicate his beauty to the sun"— and unable to endure the miscreant cry and idiot laugh, withdrew to sigh his last breath in foreign climes.—The public is as envious and ungrateful as it is ignorant, stupid, and pigeon-livered— "A huge-sized monster of ingratitudes."
From Project Gutenberg
"Pigeon-livered blatherskite!—that's what I call ye—d'ye hear?" said Drayton.
From Project Gutenberg
It must needs be thou art pigeon-livered and lack gall!
From Project Gutenberg
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.
