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To speak with reserve or concealment; to utter timidly or confidentially; as, to lisp treason.

nd; to suffer gradual loss or disadvantage. -- To lose heart, to lose courage; to become timid. "The mutineers lost heart." Macaulay. -- To lose one's head, to be thrown off one's balance; to lose the use of one's good sense or judgment. In the excitement of such a discovery, many scholars lost their heads. Whitney.…

Using soft words; plausible; affectedly or timidly delicate of speech; unwilling to tell the truth in plain language. "Mealy-mouthed philanthropies." Tennyson. She was a fool to be mealy-mouthed where nature speaks so plain. L'Estrange. -- Meal"y-mouth`ness, n.

Timid; fearful. -- Me*tic"u*lous*ly, adv.

ciation formed among the tenantry in Ireland about 1843, principally for the purpose of intimidating law officers and preventing the service of legal writs. Its members disguised themselves in the dress of women. (b) A member of a similar association of Irishmen organized in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania,…

Sensitive; excitable; timid. Our aristocratic class does not firmly protest against the unfair treatment of Irish Catholics, because it is nervous about the land. M. Arnold. Nervous fever (Med.), a low form of fever characterized by great disturbance of the nervous system, as evinced by delirium, or stupor, disordered…

Timid; fearful. [R.] Thackeray.

Timidity. [R.]

Timid; easily frightened; chicken-hearted. Beau. & Fl.

Without pluck; timid; faint-hearted.

hich turns pure white in winter. It is probably a variety of the common European hare (L. timidus). -- Polar lights, the aurora borealis or australis. -- Polar, or Polaric, opposition or contrast (Logic), an opposition or contrast made by the existence of two opposite conceptions which are the extremes in a species,…

Easily frightened; timid; as, a shy bird. The horses of the army . . . were no longer shy, but would come up to my very feet without starting. Swift.

In a shy or timid manner; not familiarly; with reserve. [Written also shily.]

Wild; timid; shy. [Prov. Eng. & Scot.]

Not loudly; faintly; timidly. [Obs. or Humorous] You may speak as small as you will. Shak.

Of or pertaining to a specter; ghosty. He that feels timid at the spectral form of evil is not the man to spread light. F. W. Robertson.

The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a mode of government by terror or intimidation. Jefferson.

One who governs by terrorism or intimidation; specifically, an agent or partisan of the revolutionary tribunal during the Reign of Terror in France. Burke.

To impress with terror; to coerce by intimidation. Humiliated by the tyranny of foreign despotism, and terrorized by ecclesiastical authority. J. A. Symonds.

Fearful of danger; timid; deficient in courage. Shak.