Word.ws English Dictionary

quakebuttock

Syllables: quake·but·tock/ˈkweɪkˌbʌtək/US/ˈkweɪkˌbʌtək/

quakebuttock noun: a coward.

Noun

quakebuttock (plural quakebuttocks)

  1. (humorous, obsolete, rare) A coward.
    • See what theſe times are grown to, before twenty / I ruſh'd into the world, which is indeed / Much like the Art of ſwiming, he that will attain to't / Muſt fall plump, and duck himſelf at firſt, / And that will make him hardy and advent'rous, / And not ſtand putting in one foot, and ſhiver, / And...c. 1613, Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, “Wit at Several Weapons. A Comedy.”, in Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. […], [part 2], London: […] J[ohn] Macock [and H. Hills], for John Martyn, Henry...
    • Not fitting speech, Kor. Quakebuttock, some would have called him. Coward. But I knew he was no coward, and though I wanted to rail at him in anger, heartache would not let me. Not yet.1987, Nancy Springer, chapter 14, in Mindbond (A TOR Book), New York, N.Y.: Tom Doherty Associates, →ISBN; republished as Mindbond (Sea King Trilogy; 2), New York, N.Y.: Open Road Integrated Media...

Examples of quakebuttock in a sentence

  • From hurtful facts I fain won't hide / (I'm not that quakebuttock, weak type who'd / Turn face from fear: I never shied / From vulgar verities others shooed), [...]1993 fall, Mike Wenthe, “‘Song of Prude: You and I’ in the Key of F-flat”, in Deborah Forbes, Josh May, editors, The Archive, volume 106...
  • Have pity on we poor wretched sinners / We blatherskites and lopdoodles / Lickspiggots and clinchpoops / Quibberdicks and Quakebuttocks.2006, Roger McGough, “Prayer to Saint Grobianos, the Patron Saint of Coarse People”, in Selected Poems, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page...
  • 'I'm not a complete quakebuttock, you know!' / Yes! (Quakebuttock is a new word I learned weeks ago and have been meaning to slip into conversation ever since.)2011, Tom Clempson, “Registration”, in One Seriously Messed-up Week in the Otherwise Mundane and Uneventful Life of Sam Taylor Jack...

Synonyms of quakebuttock

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of quakebuttock

pluralquakebuttocks
alternative formquake-buttock

Origin of quakebuttock

From quake + buttock. The word was rare before the 20th century but appears to have experienced a revival.

Questions about quakebuttock

What does quakebuttock mean?
Quakebuttock means a coward.
How do you use quakebuttock in a sentence?
From hurtful facts I fain won't hide / (I'm not that quakebuttock, weak type who'd / Turn face from fear: I never shied / From vulgar verities others shooed), [...]
What part of speech is quakebuttock?
Quakebuttock is a noun.
How do you pronounce quakebuttock?
Quakebuttock is pronounced /ˈkweɪkˌbʌtək/ (UK).
What is the plural of quakebuttock?
The plural of quakebuttock is quakebuttocks.

Words near quakebuttock in the dictionary

  1. quake-breeches
  2. quake-buttock
  3. quake-buttocks
  4. quakebreech
  5. quakebreeches
  6. quakebuttock
  7. quakebuttocks
  8. quaked
  9. quaked in one's boots
  10. quaked in one's shoes
  11. quakelike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quakebuttock (page history and authors). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-quakebuttock.oga.

Cite this entry: “quakebuttock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quakebuttock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.