Pusillanimous means cowardly and lacking any spirit. A pusillanimous retreat, pusillanimous leadership, too pusillanimous to object.
It is a heavy, formal insult and is aimed at a failure of nerve rather than at fear itself. The Latin is small-souled, which is more contemptuous than merely afraid.
1adjectivepusillanimousCowardly and lacking any spirit.
“The response was pusillanimous when it needed to be firm.”
pusillanimous is a quality.
Latin pusillanimis is pusillus, very small, plus animus, spirit: small-souled.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂enh₁-
English, today
pusillanimous
Derived from pusillanimis + -ous.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA