Craven
adj, name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A coward. archaic
"He is a craven and a villain else."
- 2 an abject coward wordnet
- 1 To make craven. archaic
"There is a prohibition so divine / That cravens my weak hand."
- 1 Unwilling to fight; lacking even the rudiments of courage; extremely cowardly.
"The poor craven bridegroom said never a word."
- 1 lacking even the rudiments of courage; abjectly fearful wordnet
- 1 A surname.
- 2 A former local government district in North Yorkshire, England, merged in 2023 into the North Yorkshire unitary authority.
- 3 A village in the Rural Municipality of Longlaketon No. 219, Saskatchewan, Canada.
- 4 A locality in the MidCoast council area, eastern New South Wales, Australia.
Example
More examples""During the Industrial Revolution, steel transformed the American landscape. The strength of this new metal made skyscrapers possible, rebuilding Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871," says Craven."
Etymology
From Middle English cravant, either borrowed from Old French cravanté (“defeated”), past participle of cravanter (ultimately from Latin crepare), or a modification of creaunt (“defeated”) after craven (“to crave”).
From Proto-Brythonic; equivalent to Welsh craf (“garlic”) + the suffix -an. Compare Cremona.
Related phrases
More for "craven"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.