white-livered

1. 1.

   easily frightened

   Synonymschickenchickenheartedlily-liveredyellowyellow-bellied

   Similarcowardly

   colloquialism

Questions about white-livered

What does white-livered mean?

white-livered means "easily frightened".

How many syllables are in white-livered?

white-livered has 4 syllables: white--li-ve-red. The stress falls on "li".

What is another word for white-livered?

Close synonyms include chicken, chickenhearted, lily-livered, yellow, yellow-bellied. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is white-livered a common word?

white-livered is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.