Short post this fortnight.
Coward is from Old French coart which comes from coe ‘tail’ from the Latin coda/cauda which also means ‘tail’. It has the agent affix -ard (as in “sluggard”, “drunkard”, and so on). The idea is the same as when we say “turn tail and run”, or how a dog will put its tail between its legs. So a good Saxon alternative to “coward” is surely tail-turner.
© 2017 Bryan A. J. Parry
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Wrixlings 
