Word of the Day for Wednesday, October 31, 2012
lily-livered \LIL-ee-LIV-erd\,
noun:
Weak or lacking in courage; cowardly; pusillanimous.
But surely, for your own sake, you will not be so lily-livered as to fall into this trap which he has baited for you and let him take the very bread out of your mouth without a struggle. -- Anthony Trollope, "Barchester Towers"
He had skin as white as a lily, but he was not lily-livered; he was as strong as a champion at the Shrovetide games. -- Geoffrey Chaucer and Peter Ackroyd, "Canterbury Tales"
Lily-livered was first used in English by Shakespeare in Macbeth. The liver was supposedly the seat of passion and was typically dark red or brown. Since a lily is pale and light-colored, a lily-livered person was weak and passionless. Dictionary.com Word of the Day
