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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

timorous.

Tending to be easily frightened; shy, timid.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈtɪməɹəs/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈtɪmɹəs/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. Tending to be easily frightened; shy, timid.

  2. Feeling fear; afraid, fearful, frightened.

    archaic
  3. Fastidious in dressing.

    UK · dialectal
  4. Fired with intense feeling; passionate.

    UK · dialectal
  5. Hard to manage; difficult, tiresome.

    UK · dialectal
  6. Causing dread or fear; dreadful, terrible.

    obsolete
  7. Humble, modest; also, showing reverence; respectful, reverent, reverential.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Late Middle English timorous (“(adjective) fearful, frightened; causing fear, dreadful, terrible; deferential, modest; (noun) timid people collectively”), borrowed from Old French temoros, temorous, from Medieval Latin timōrōsus, from timōr- (the stem of Latin timor (“dread, fear”)) + -ōsus (suffix meaning ‘full of; prone to’). Timor is derived from timeō (“to be afraid of, fear”) (further origin uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *temH- (“dark”)) + -or (suffix forming third-declension masculine abstract nouns). Doublet of timoroso.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.