timorous

• timourous (obsolete)

From Old French temoros, from Medieval Latin timorosus, from Latin timor fear, from timeō to be afraid.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɪməɹəs/

timorous (comparative more timorous, superlative most timorous)

1. fearful; afraid; timid
   • Robert Burns

     Wee sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie,

     Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[[Episode 16]]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare & Co.; Sylvia Beach, OCLC 560090630; republished London: Published for the Egoist Press, London by John Rodker, Paris, October 1922, OCLC 2297483:

     He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly.

   • 1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days:

     The suspect was a man of forty, with a grey, timorous face, dressed only in a ragged longyi kilted to the knee, beneath which his lank, curved shins were specked with tick-bites.

• (fearful): fearful, shy, timid

• (fearful): daredevil, dauntless, reckless

• timorsome

• sumotori