craven
/ˈkɹeɪ.vən/
craven adjective: unwilling to fight; lacking even the rudiments of courage; extremely cowardly.
Adjective
craven (comparative more craven, superlative most craven)
- Unwilling to fight; lacking even the rudiments of courage; extremely cowardly.
- The poor craven bridegroom said never a word.1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “(please specify the introduction or canto number, or chapter name)”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald...
- Prime Minister Abe's fumbling and craven performance took place on a national holiday in Korea, marking the countrywide uprising against the Japanese colonial rule that began on March 1, 1919. March 1 is also the day in 1932 that Japan chose to inaugurate Manchukuo (after seizing northeastern...2010, Bruce Cumings, The Korean War
- Synonyms:
- backboneless, base, soft, bitch-ass, boneless, caitiff, candy-assed, chicken, chicken-hearted, chicken-livered
Noun
craven (plural cravens)
- A coward.
- He is a craven and a villain else.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- “God knows I would rather die licked in the fire by the side of my king than to live out my days twitted and scorned as a craven.”1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 45
- Synonyms:
- bottler, caitiff, candy-ass, candy-arse, coistril, coward, chicken, chicken liver, chickenshit, cocktail
Verb
craven (third-person singular simple present cravens, present participle cravening, simple past and past participle cravened)
- To make craven.
- There is a prohibition so divine / That cravens my weak hand.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
Proper noun capitalized: Craven
Craven
- A surname.
- A former local government district in North Yorkshire, England, merged in 2023 into the North Yorkshire unitary authority.
- A village in the Rural Municipality of Longlaketon No. 219, Saskatchewan, Canada.
- A locality in the MidCoast council area, eastern New South Wales, Australia.
craven meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
craven in Hindi
- क्रेवन
craven in Tamil
- பேடி, கோழை, பேடித்தனமான, கோழைத்தனமான
craven in Urdu
- بےدم, بزدل, ہارا ہوا, مریل
craven in Bengali
- কাপুরুষোচিত, ভীরু, সাহসের অভাব রয়েছে এমন
More languagesFewer languages
- craven in Malayalam
- ചുണകെട്ട, ധെെര്യം കെട്ട, ഭീരുവായ, ഭീരുത്വമുള്ള
- craven in Kannada
- ದೊಡ್ಡ ಹೇಡಿ, ಅಂಜುಬುರುಕ
- craven in Punjabi
- ਕ੍ਰੈਵਨ
- craven in Gujarati
- ક્રેવન, ક્રેવેન
- craven in Nepali
- क्रेभन, क्रेभेन, क्र्याभेन
Examples of craven in a sentence
- Prime Minister Abe's fumbling and craven performance took place on a national holiday in Korea, marking the countrywide uprising against the Japanese colonial rule that began on March 1, 1919.2010, Bruce Cumings, The Korean War:
- There’s no perfect approach to content moderation, but they could at least try to look less transparently craven and incoherent.”2020 October 12, Andrew Marantz, quoting Dave Willner, “Why Facebook Can’t Fix Itself”, in The New Yorker:
- The PP has seized on the possibility of an amnesty to rally support and to portray the PSOE leader as craven, dependent on Catalan separatists and hellbent on remaining in office.2023 September 26, Sam Jones, “Spain elections: Feijóo launches doomed bid to lead country”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- Now, I hold no candle for the train operators, and I think that in the main they have been far too craven about any government proposals.2023 November 15, Christian Wolmar, “Ministers should carry the can for ticket office fiasco”, in RAIL, number 996, page 47:
Synonyms of craven
- backboneless
- base
- soft
- bitch-ass
- boneless
- caitiff
- candy-assed
- chicken
- chicken-hearted
- chicken-livered
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- chickenshit
- courageless
- cowardly
- cowardy
- cowhearted
- cowish
- cravenhearted
- cringey
- dastard
- dastardly
- dickless
- dough-faced
- fainthearted
- fearful
- fraidy
- gizzardless
- invertebrate
- gutless
- hen-hearted
- kiasi
- lily-livered
- liver-faced
- low-hearted
- milk-livered
- mouse-hearted
- mousy
- nerveless
- nutless
- pigeon-livered
- poltroonish
Forms of craven
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more craven |
| superlative | most craven |
| Noun | |
| plural | cravens |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cravens |
| present participle | cravening |
| past participle | cravened |
| past | cravened |
Origin of craven
From Middle English cravant, either borrowed from Old French cravanté (“defeated”), past participle of cravanter (ultimately from Latin crepare), or a modification of creaunt (“defeated”) after craven (“to crave”).
From Proto-Brythonic; equivalent to Welsh craf (“garlic”) + the suffix -an. Compare Cremona.
Words formed from craven
Phrases with craven
Words that rhyme with craven
Questions about craven
- What does craven mean?
- Craven means unwilling to fight; lacking even the rudiments of courage; extremely cowardly.
- What is craven in Hindi?
- Craven in Hindi is क्रेवन. See Craven meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use craven in a sentence?
- Prime Minister Abe's fumbling and craven performance took place on a national holiday in Korea, marking the countrywide uprising against the Japanese colonial rule that began on March 1, 1919.
- What part of speech is craven?
- Craven can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce craven?
- Craven is pronounced /ˈkɹeɪ.vən/.
Words near craven in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: craven (page history and authors); Craven (page history and authors); craven (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); craven (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); craven (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); craven (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); craven (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); craven (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); craven (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); craven (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); craven (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-craven.wav.
Cite this entry: “craven.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/craven. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.