Poltroonery

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Cowardice; lack of spirit; pusillanimity. countable, uncountable

    "Genius, Poet: do we know what these words mean? […] Nature’s own sacred voice heard once more athwart the dreary boundless element of hearsaying and canting, of twaddle and poltroonery, in which the bewildered Earth, nigh perishing, has lost its way."

  2. 2
    abject pusillanimity wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
basenesschicken-heartednesscowardicehen-heartednesspoltroonism

Example

More examples

"Genius, Poet: do we know what these words mean? […] Nature’s own sacred voice heard once more athwart the dreary boundless element of hearsaying and canting, of twaddle and poltroonery, in which the bewildered Earth, nigh perishing, has lost its way."

Etymology

From poltroon + -ery.

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