poltroon

• poltron (obsolete)

From Middle French poltron, from Italian poltrone.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pɒlˈtɹuːn/
• (US) IPA^(key): /pɑlˈtɹun/

poltroon (plural poltroons)

1. An ignoble or total coward; a dastard; a mean-spirited wretch.
   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act I, Scene 1,

     Patience is for poltroons, such as he:

     He durst not sit there, had your father lived.

   • 1727, Daniel Defoe, An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions, London: J. Roberts, Chapter 8, p. 144,

     For the Devil’s a Coward in Nature,

     A pitiful sorry Poltroon;

     If you take but the Whip, he’ll give you the Slip;

     And before you can lash him, he’ll run.

   • 1778, George Washington, to Charles Lee following an act of insubordination

     You damned poltroon, you never tried them!

   • 1842, Nicholas Michell, The Traduced: An Historical Romance‎, London: T. & W. Boone, Volume I, Chapter 28, pp. 266-267,

     "To gain life by means of a breach of faith and honour, were indeed to render myself the poltroon, and the villain my accusers believe me."

   • 1951, P. G. Wodehouse, 'The Old Reliable', Hutchinson, London: 1981, p 162,

     The sounds outside had ceased...But somebody had been there, and she proposed to look into the matter thoroughly. There was nothing of the poltroon about Adela Shannon Cork

   • 1959, Robert A.Heinlein, Starship Troopers

     First is our unbreakable rule that every candidate must be a trained trooper, blooded under fire, a veteran of combat drops. No other army in history has stuck to this rule, although some came close. Most great military schools of the past — Saint Cyr, West Point, Sandhurst, Colorado Springs didn’t even pretend to follow it; they accepted civilian boys, trained them, commissioned them, sent them out with no battle experience to command men... and sometimes discovered too late that this smart young ‘officer’ was a fool, a poltroon, or a hysteric.

   • 'e2018' Jared, "Tech Evangelist", Silicon Valley episode 42, 5 minutes

     You judas, you cow-handed poltroon, we thought you were a stallion.

• (ignoble coward): craven, dastard

poltroon (comparative more poltroon, superlative most poltroon)

1. Cowardly.
   • 1926, T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Chapter 82,

     Accordingly, to excuse our deliberate inactivity in the north, we had to make a show of impotence, which gave them to understand that the Arabs were too poltroon to cut the line near Maan and keep it cut.

• poltroon in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• Poltroon in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)