DictionaryAI

craven

USKRAY-vuhn/ˈkɹeɪ.vən/

Noun pluralcravens

Verbcravens, cravening, cravened

3 meanings of craven

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  1. 1
    adjective
    Extremely cowardly, unwilling to fight and lacking even the most basic courage.

    Critics called the senator's silence craven, saying he had dropped his principles to avoid a fight with party leaders.

    The general's craven retreat left the village defenseless.

    Similarcowardly, spineless, gutless, chicken, yellow

    Oppositebrave, courageous, bold, valiant

    Note

    The word began as a loser’s label: Middle English cravant goes back either to Old French cravanté, “defeated,” or to creaunt, “defeated,” reshaped by the verb crave. Despite the look, wanting has nothing to do with it. Today it is aimed less at battlefield fear than at public conduct: a prime minister’s fumbling performance, a company’s moderation rules, a politician clinging to office.

  2. 2
    nounarchaic
    A person who lacks courage; a coward.

    He would rather lose the duel than be branded a craven by the whole court.

    He is a craven and a villain else.
    1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”

    Similarcoward, chicken, milquetoast

    Note

    As a noun it is archaic, and its natural setting is the court and the battlefield. Shakespeare’s Henry V has “He is a craven and a villain else,” and in Norma Lorre Goodrich’s retelling of Beowulf in The Medieval Myths (1961) a warrior would rather die beside his king than be scorned as a craven. Current prose reaches for the adjective instead.

  3. 3
    verbarchaic
    To make someone extremely cowardly, robbing them of their courage.

    No threat could craven the old captain, who had faced worse storms than any tyrant.

    There is a prohibition so divine / That cravens my weak hand.
    1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”
    Note

    Here the quality becomes something done to a person, and the verb takes a direct object. In Shakespeare’s Cymbeline (1611) the speaker feels “a prohibition so divine / That cravens my weak hand”: the command drains the courage from the hand that would act. Being archaic, it belongs to deliberately old-fashioned writing rather than to speech.

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Origin

From Middle English cravant, which was either borrowed from Old French cravanté (“defeated”), the past participle of cravanter (ultimately from Latin crepare), or else a modification of creaunt (“defeated”) influenced by craven (“to crave”).