Definition of "lily-livered" []

• Cowardly; timid. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The Guardian staff are described as "lily-livered gits hiding in their glass offices.""
• "I believe that much of the low-level unpleasantness that you describe being visited upon you at large gatherings in the UK is precisely the result of lily-livered enforcement and presecution of such offences."
• "Compromise can be, and often is, the path of least resistance, the province of the mealy-mouthed, weak-kneed, and lily-livered."