yellow-bellied
Quick to flee
Yellow-bellied means cowardly, lacking courage or nerve: That yellow-bellied traitor ran at the first sign of trouble.
The expression draws on yellow as a color long associated with cowardice.
It appears most often as a folksy insult, with an old-fashioned, almost theatrical quality: You yellow-bellied coward!
Lacking courage or resolve
- cravenContemptibly lacking nerve
- pusillanimousLacking courage or determination
- gutlessLacking bravery or nerve
- chickenheartedLacking bravery or nerve
fainthearted · lily-livered · dastardly · white-livered · poltroon · milksop · recreant · unheroic
spineless
Lacking courage or resolve
- cravenContemptibly lacking nerve
- pusillanimousLacking courage or determination
- gutlessLacking bravery or nerve
chickenhearted · fainthearted · lily-livered · dastardly · white-livered · poltroon · milksop · recreant · unheroic · chicken
shy
Reserved and retiring
diffident · timorous · unassertive · sheepish · shrinking · retiring · self-effacing · withdrawn · reserved · submissive
sapsucker
Bird feeding on tree fluids
- woodpeckerTree-drilling bird
- flycatcherInsect-eating perching bird
- marmotLarge burrowing ground squirrel
slider · warbler · cuckoo · kingbird · bird · plumage · species · marking