(a.) Destitute of a manly or courageous strength and firmness of mind; of weak spirit; mean-spirited; spiritless; cowardly; -- said of persons, as, a pussillanimous prince.
(a.) Evincing, or characterized by, weakness of mind, and want of courage; feeble; as, pusillanimous counsels.
Example Sentences:
(1) It is a pusillanimous, jargon-ridden, self-perpetuating proof of Parkinson's law .
(2) Is there any Eurosceptic in this pusillanimous cabinet with the guts to speak his mind and put principles and country before personal ambition?” the Mail asks.
(3) To be a bystander when one's discipline does offer insights and methods of value discernment is pusillanimous.
(4) He was the government’s top Europe adviser at David Cameron’s side throughout Britain’s EU renegotiation, where some accused him of pusillanimity in the face of Brussels intransigence .
(5) Result: the normally admirable Mr Grieve risked seeming a pusillanimous ministerial jobsworth unwilling to let the public learn the full truth about our foolish and meddling heir to the throne.
(6) But to make that a reason to abandon the policy would be pusillanimous in the extreme.
(7) This may be just what ministers' friends say to appease backbench plotters feeling betrayed by the apparent pusillanimity of cabinet failure to jump after Purnell.
(8) The Mail made clear its frustration: “Is there any Eurosceptic in this pusillanimous cabinet with the guts to speak his mind and put principles and country before personal ambition?” But while the Times called Boris Johnson “right”, the Sun is expected to take a far tougher line on a man the paper has already outed, along with Michael Gove, as being on the side of in.
(9) Britain and France, Europe's two military heavyweights, took the lead on the Libyan intervention in the teeth of outright opposition from Germany and pusillanimity in Washington.
(10) Why aren’t these faithless, pusillanimous people retaliating as they should, by surging towards Ukip with cries of revenge against all Muslims?
(11) For some, Wapping planted a decisive nail in the coffin of what Andrew Neil, a former Murdoch editor, has described as "all that was wrong with British industry: pusillanimous management, pig-headed unions, crazy restrictive practices, endless strikes and industrial disruption, and archaic technology".
(12) But only nine days into his administration, Clinton found himself at a press conference explaining “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, an awkward (and many thought pusillanimous) compromise to permit gays and lesbians to serve in the military.
(13) The British government – pusillanimous as ever – thinks it is too sensitive a subject for us to ask the US why it is flouting an international agreement.
(14) The question then is, is this pusillanimity on his part?
(15) The pusillanimity of the remain campaign’s failure to counter these claims was indefensible.
(16) Amid so many humanitarian emergencies, it would be callous of Mr Cameron to pursue this nomination and pusillanimous of the secretary general to accept it.
(17) Heads should roll," he wrote on his website, "Isn't it really about time we decent, nice, liberal people stopped being so pusillanimously terrified of being thought 'Islamophobic' and stood up for decent, nice, liberal values?"
Timidity
Definition:
(n.) The quality or state of being timid; timorousness; timidness.
Example Sentences:
(1) But my timid scrunch-face puts me so behind the curve that I might as well start training carrier pigeons.
(2) The Senate’s economic references committee accused Asic of missing or ignoring persistent signs of wrongdoing , characterising it as a “timid, hesitant regulator” that was too ready to uncritically accept assurances of a large institution that there were no grounds for intervention.
(3) Confirming that he would apply to be the next commissioner of the Met, he said: "I do not believe that the men and the women of the Met were timid, which is an accusation that has been levelled at us."
(4) When the police visited Rodger, whom Brown said deputies found “rather shy, timid and polite, well-spoken”, he played down any mental problems, telling police he was having difficulties with his social life and was planning to drop out of Santa Barbara City College.
(5) Like her bolder aunt Marine, the timid Maréchal-Le Pen complained that she suffered greatly from taunts at school that her grandad was a “fascist”.
(6) Photograph: AFP Saint Laurent became an object of immediate fascination: quiet, timid, with neatly parted schoolboy hair, anxious eyes lurking behind thick glasses and a frail body encased in a tight black suit.
(7) Free-born animals are very timid and show typical flight reactions.
(8) On the left, meanwhile, we feel our way towards a progressive alliance much more timidly, even when we know we’re sunk without it.
(9) It is suspicious of the SNP's rather timid version of independence, always being described as being about "the full powers of the parliament" – which is hardly a language or outlook for transformational change.
(10) This is an international problem demanding an international response, which so far has been desperately timid.
(11) Like Cameron, who is disappointing Eurosceptics with the timidity of his reform programme, the Swiss have been forced to accede to the realities of negotiating with a much bigger player.
(12) Endogenous depressives were found to have more pronounced changes on measures of dependence and timidity, but when change in mood state was partialed out only one of the dependence measures and timidity remained significant.
(13) This kind of contacts led to a social activation especially by schizophreniacs who had a lack of drive and seemed to be regressive, also caused an increase of drive and self-reliance by formerly timid, reserved girls.
(14) Romney also took several digs at Clinton’s foreign policy record, characterizing her time with the Obama administration as “timid”.
(15) Australia have a patchy squad, but its best elements are valuable and there had been no prospect that they would lose timidly.
(16) In opposition, we were too timid about making these bigger arguments.” He has calculated that government spending on housing benefit will be £120bn over the next five years, almost £50bn of which goes to private landlords.
(17) After only a few weeks in Chile, Pinochet is finding the charms of his native land - the compliant judges, the supportive generals, the timid politicians - are not what they used to be.
(18) The sanctions imposed by western states against Russia represent a timid hope that economic hardship will make Russians resent the regime and nudge them towards active protests.
(19) It is the bold agenda against the timid one; the visionaries against those who believe Labour can limp home with a few safe offerings that can fit safely on the back of a pledge card.
(20) The Liberal Democrats are undecided (Nick Clegg calls it "timid"), the crossbenchers unlikely to co-operate.