Fainthearted

adj

adj ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Faint of heart; irresolute; fearful.

    "Upon this, our guide, who, by the way, was but a fainthearted fellow, bid us keep in a ready posture, for he believed there were more wolves a-coming. We kept our arms ready, and our eyes about us..."

Adjective
  1. 1
    lacking conviction or boldness or courage wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
afraidcowardlytimidtimorousabulicafraid

Example

More examples

"The elephant was alone and fainthearted."

Etymology

From faint + hearted.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.