# craven

Pronunciation: US say "KRAY-vuhn" /ˈkɹeɪ.vən/; UK

## Adjective

1. Extremely cowardly, unwilling to fight and lacking even the most basic courage.
   - Simple: Very cowardly, with no courage at all and not willing to fight.
   - _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._

## Noun

2. A person who lacks courage; a coward. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A person who has no courage.
   - _He would rather lose the duel than be branded a craven by the whole court._
   - _The cravens slipped out of camp the night before the battle, leaving their shields behind._

## Verb

3. To make someone extremely cowardly, robbing them of their courage. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To make someone lose all their courage.
   - _No threat could craven the old captain, who had faced worse storms than any tyrant._
   - _Long years under the tyrant had cravened a people once famous for their pride._

## 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”).

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/craven (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).