词汇释义

pusillanimous  TEM8  GRE

UK /ˌpjuː.sɪˈlæn.ɪ.məs/ US/ˌpjuː.sɪˈlæn.ə.məs/

adj, If you say that someone is pusillanimous, you mean that they are timid or afraid.胆怯的，怯懦的

词汇图表

外刊例句

1. For manufacturing to become relatively stronger, the City needs to become relatively weaker, but that won't happen if the response to the financial crisis is pusillanimous.(The Guardian)

2. The anonymous author seemed to relish his cheeky, slightly un-Timesean kicker, which quoted a Republican on the state of the House: “a supine, subservient, soporific, superfluous, supercilious, pusillanimous body of nitwits.”(New York Times)

3. Just read its pusillanimous "statement of support" for Sony in its hour of need.(Los Angeles Times)

4. And then remember that Moss received a 90% vote in favour of his re-election as a director, as pusillanimous investors instead registered unhappiness by voting against the pay report.(The Guardian)

5. He thought he would be dealing with the usual pusillanimous collection of fund managers who roll over in the end when even a modest takeover premium is on the table.(The Guardian)

6. After all, the lives of real people were being affected by the political posturing of these pusillanimous centrists.(The Guardian)

7. Scriptures typically evolved flexibly to promote compassion, empathy and magnanimity — so it is particularly sad when today they are cherry-picked by ideologues, wrenched from context, to justify rigid and pusillanimous dogma.(New York Times)

8. The pusillanimous, corporate-speak testimony of several corporate executives is quoted at length — perhaps at too great a length.(New York Times)

9. Her predicament parallels Attila’s growing sense that much of his own work is pusillanimous and dangerously indulgent.(New York Times)

10. In a contemporary intellectual culture that is often pusillanimous in its evenhandedness, a dash of unreasonable invective is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.(The New Yorker)

11. They may be starved of live gigs, this may be the first HM concert in the area since Motörhead two years ago, but the Colwyn Bay rock brigade is no namby-pamby, pusillanimous collection of punters.(The Guardian)

12. Scenes from an Execution, which focuses on the relationship between a pusillanimous artist and her patrons in Renaissance Venice, is Barker's most famous and accessible play – which, to him, is a problem.(The Guardian)

词汇搭配

pusillanimous people

词汇家族

pusillanimously,pusillanimousness, pusillanimity

词汇来源

early 15c., pusillanimus, "timid, lacking strength and firmness of mind," from Late Latin pusillanimis "having little courage" (used in Church Latin to translate Greek oligopsykhos "small-souled"), from Latin pusillis "very weak, little" (diminutive of pullus "young animal," from PIE root *pau- (1) "few, little") + animus "spirit, courage" (see animus).

近义词

gutless, recreant, spineless, unheroic, diffident, fearful, timid, timorous, afraid, frightened, scared, shy, feeble, weak

反义词

brave, courageous, dauntless, fearless, gallant, greathearted, gutsy, hardy, heroic (also heroical), intrepid, valiant

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