Both Uses of
craven
in
Hard Times
- …issued by that body for your benefit, whatever they may be — what, I ask you, will you say of that working-man, since such I must acknowledge him to be, who, at such a time, deserts his post, and sells his flag; who, at such a time, turns a traitor and a craven and a recreant, who, at such a time, is not ashamed to make to you the dastardly and humiliating avowal that he will hold himself aloof, and will not be one of those associated in the gallant stand for Freedom and for Right?'†
Chpt 2.4 *
- And now, my friends — my labouring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that stigma — my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to himself, when, with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us in all his native deformity, a What?†
Chpt 3.4
Definition:
-
(craven) exceedingly cowardly; or someone who is exceedingly cowardly