timourous

Adjective

timorous (comparative more timorous, superlative most timorous)

1. Tending to be easily frightened; shy, timid.
   • But thou now O temerous ⁊ weake ſely ſhepe, thynke yt ſufficient for thee, onely to walke after me, which am thy ſhepehearde ⁊ gouernor: […]1534 (date written), Thomas More, “A Treatice vpon the Passion of Chryste (Vnfinished) […]”, in Marye Basset [i.e., Mary Basset], transl., edited by Wyllyam Rastell [i.e., William Rastell], The...

   Synonyms:

   timorsome

   Antonyms:

   adventurous, mettlesome, aweless, bad, bold, brass-balled, chivalrous, courageous, daredevil, daring

2. (archaic) Feeling fear; afraid, fearful, frightened.
   • He [the Devil] marketh well […] mennes complexions within thẽ [them], health, or ſicknes, good humours or badde, by which they be light hearted or lumpiſh, ſtrong hearted, or faynt & fieble of ſpirite, bolde and hardy, or timorous and fearefull of courage.1534 (date written; published 1553), Thomas More, “A Dyalogue of Comforte agaynste Tribulacyon, […]. XVI. Of Hym that were Moued to Kyl Himself by Illusion of the Dyuel, which He Rekened for a...

   Synonyms:

   apprehensive, afeared, afraid, alarmed, anxious, chicken, concerned, creeped out, fearful, frightened

   Antonyms:

   brave, daredevil, dauntless, temerarious, untimorous, unafraid, unruffled, unterrified

3. (UK, dialectal) Fastidious in dressing.
4. (UK, dialectal) Fired with intense feeling; passionate.
5. (UK, dialectal) Hard to manage; difficult, tiresome.
6. (obsolete) Causing dread or fear; dreadful, terrible.
   • Well, having past halfe way downewards, wee came to the most scurrile and timorous Discent of the whole passage, where with much difficuty, I set safe the foure Germanes in our narrow Rode hewen out of the craggy Hill; […]1632, William Lithgow, “The Sixth Part”, in The Totall Discourse of the Rare Adventures and Painefull Peregrinations of Long Nineteene Yeares Travayles from Scotland to the Most Famous Kingdomes in...

See all 7 meanings of timorous