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Recoil vs Coward - What's the difference?

recoil | coward |

As a noun recoil

is a starting or falling back; a rebound; a shrinking.

As a verb recoil

is .

As a proper noun coward is

.

recoil

English

(wikipedia recoil)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A starting or falling back; a rebound; a shrinking.
    • the recoil of nature, or of the blood
  • The state or condition of having recoiled.
  • * F. W. Robertson
    • The recoil from formalism is skepticism.
  • (firearms) The amount of energy transmitted back to the shooter from a firearm which has fired. Recoil is a function of the weight of the weapon, the weight of the projectile, and the speed at which it leaves the muzzle.

    • Verb

  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , V.11:
    • that rude rout
  • (obsolete) To retire, withdraw.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , I.x:
    • Ye both forwearied be: therefore a whyle / Iread you rest, and to your bowres recoyle .
  • * Milton
    • Evil on itself shall back recoil .
  • * De Quincey
    • The solemnity of her demeanor made it impossible that we should recoil into our ordinary spirits.
  • To pull back, especially in disgust, horror or astonishment.
    • He recoiled in disgust when he saw the mess.
    (Shakespeare)

    Derived terms

    * recoil on

    Anagrams

    *

    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