Craven vs Cringe - What's the difference?
craven | cringe |
Unwilling to fight; lacking even the rudiments of courage; extremely cowardly.
* Sir Walter Scott
To make .
* 1609 : , Act III, Scene IV
A posture or gesture of shrinking or recoiling.
(dialect) A crick.
(dated) To bow or crouch in servility.
* Milton
* 1903 , ,
* 1904 , ,
To shrink, tense or recoil, as in fear, disgust or embarrassment.
* Bunyan
* 1917 , ,
(obsolete) To contract; to draw together; to cause to shrink or wrinkle; to distort.
* Shakespeare
As a proper noun craven
is .As a noun cringe is
a posture or gesture of shrinking or recoiling.As a verb cringe is
(dated|intransitive) to bow or crouch in servility.craven
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- The poor craven bridegroom said never a word.
Derived terms
* cry cravenVerb
(en verb)- There is a prohibition so divine / That cravens my weak hand.
References
* *Anagrams
* * English adjectives ending in -en ----cringe
English
Alternative forms
* (dialectal)Noun
(en noun)- He glanced with a cringe at the mess on his desk.
Verb
- Sly hypocrite, who more than thou / Once fawned and cringed , and servilely adored / Heaven's awful monarch?
- He heard the hateful clank of their chains; he felt them cringe and grovel, and there rose within him a protest and a prophecy.
- Leclere was bent on the coming of the day when Batard should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet.
- He cringed as the bird collided with the window.
- When they were come up to the place where the lions were, the boys that went before were glad to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the lions.
- But he made no whimper. Nor did he wince or cringe to the blows. He bored straight in, striving, without avoiding a blow, to beat and meet the blow with his teeth.
- Till like a boy you see him cringe his face, / And whine aloud for mercy.
