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Coward vs Dastard - What's the difference?

coward | dastard |

As nouns the difference between coward and dastard

is that coward is a person who lacks courage while dastard is a malicious coward; a dishonorable sneak.

As adjectives the difference between coward and dastard

is that coward is cowardly while dastard is meanly shrinking from danger, cowardly, dastardly.

As a proper noun Coward

is {{surname}.

As a verb dastard is

to dastardize.

coward

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A person who lacks courage.
  • * 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part II Chapter IV, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
    • He tortured himself to find out how he could make his declaration to her, and always halting between the fear of displeasing her and the shame of being such a coward , he wept with discouragement and desire. Then he took energetic resolutions, wrote letters that he tore up, put it off to times that he again deferred.

    Synonyms

    * chicken * See also

    Derived terms

    * cowardly * cowardice

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Cowardly.
  • *, II.17:
  • *:It is a coward and servile humour, for a man to disguise and hide himselfe under a maske, and not dare to shew himselfe as he is.
  • * Shakespeare
    • He raised the house with loud and coward cries.
  • * Prior
    • Invading fears repel my coward joy.
  • (heraldry, of a lion) Borne in the escutcheon with his tail doubled between his legs.
    • English words suffixed with -ard

    dastard

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A malicious coward; a dishonorable sneak.
  • * Shakespeare
    • You are all recreants and dastards , and delight to live in slavery to the nobility.

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • meanly shrinking from danger, cowardly, dastardly
  • * 1843 , '', book 3, ch. IV, ''Happy
    • Observe, too, that this is all a modern affair; belongs not to the old heroic times, but to these dastard new times. ‘Happiness our being’s end and aim’ is at bottom, if we will count well, not yet two centuries old in the world.

    References

    *
    The Free Dictionary: Dastard

    Derived terms

    * dastardly * dastardness

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To dastardize.
    • (Dryden)