yellow-bellied.

1. Cowardly or unwilling to face a challenge, used as a contemptuous insult.

2. Having a yellow belly or underside, especially in animal names and descriptions.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• yellow-bellied coward
• yellow-bellied retreat
• yellow-bellied excuse

On the page

He dismissed the refusal as a yellow-bellied excuse.

She bristled when her rival called her yellow-bellied.

The insult yellow-bellied revealed more about the speaker than the decision.

Usage notes

Primary category: fear. Forms: Normally non-gradable as a zoological color description; figurative more/most yellow-bellied is possible. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.