This week’s theme
Words derived from body parts

This week’s words
iron-hearted
pugnacious
ithyphallic
chicken-livered
hysteric

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(CHIK-en-LIV-uhrd)

MEANING:

adjective: Cowardly; easily frightened.

ETYMOLOGY:

The word chicken has traditionally been used to describe a coward. Also, earlier people believed that the liver was the seat of courage. But chicken-livered or chicken-hearted, it’s all the same. Earliest documented use: 1616.

NOTES:

The English language hasn’t been very kind to the domestic fowl. Some similar terms are chicken hawk and Chicken Little. Also see lily-livered and white-livered.

USAGE:

“Hadn’t I told her that he was no better’n a chicken-livered traitor?”
Theresa Nelson; The Year We Sailed the Sun; Atheneum; 2015.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: