cowardly
part of speech
adjective (cowardly, more cowardly, most cowardly)
meaning for a pupil
1) Cowardly means not brave, too afraid to face danger, pain or something difficult. tree →
2) A cowardly act is mean and unfair because the person avoids risk, such as attacking someone weaker or hiding behind others. tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories it is a strong criticism of a character; the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz is a famous example. In lessons about fights and fear, pupils learn that walking away from a fight is not cowardly, while bullying someone smaller is. Phrases: «a cowardly act», «a cowardly attack», «a cowardly lion».
examples
- The Cowardly Lion wanted to be brave. tree →
- Picking on a younger child is cowardly. tree →
- It was cowardly of him to blame his little brother. tree →
- Sam thought refusing to fight was cowardly, but his dad said it was wise. tree →
- The newspaper called the attack cowardly. tree →
- Sending nasty messages without a name is cowardly. tree →
- “They are the Kalidahs!” said the Cowardly Lion, beginning to tremble. tree →
note
It looks like an adverb (ends in -ly) but it is an adjective: «a cowardly boy». From «coward» + -ly. Noun: cowardice. Opposite: brave, courageous. Trap: feeling scared is not cowardly; everyone feels fear. Courage is doing the right thing anyway.
In the corpora
- Blaming a pet or a baby who cannot answer back is a cowardly lie and often fails.
- Letting someone else take your blame is cowardly, and buying it with a promise you break is a second lie.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «cowardly» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.