pot-valiant

American  

[pot-val-yuhnt] / ˈpɒtˌvæl yənt /

adjective

1. brave only as a result of being drunk.

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Other Word Forms

• pot-valiancy noun
• pot-valiantly adverb
• pot-valor noun

Etymology

Origin of pot-valiant

First recorded in 1635–45

Example Sentences

Oxford became the stronghold of Jacobitism, the scene of treasonable talk over the wine in the Common Room, of riotous demonstrations by pot-valiant undergraduates in the streets, of Jacobite orations at academical festivals, amid frantic cheers of the assembled University, of futile plotting and puerile conspiracies which never put a man in the field.

From Project Gutenberg

With pot-valiant courage they declare their intention of seeking out and slaying this false traitor Death, and without more ado set forth on the quest.

From Project Gutenberg

After an hour or so passed in desultory conversation, the “man of a mission,” standing with his back to the fire, with hands parting his coat tails—the habitual attitude of the Third Napoleon—took the cigar from between his teeth, and made résumé as follows:— “Understood, then, that you, Prussia, send a force into Baden, sufficient to crush those pot-valiant German collegians, mad, no doubt, from drinking your villainous Rhine wine!”

From Project Gutenberg

If these men just mentioned had been so protected they would not have been killed, however rash or pot-valiant they might have been.

From Project Gutenberg

All his pot-valiant courage sank at the thought of the Isaac Todd, and when the campers ran up a British flag he forbade the display of American colours above Astoria.

From Project Gutenberg