How to Use cowardice in a Sentence

cowardice

noun
  • And not all of it from a conscious place of evil or even cowardice.
    — Recode Staff, Recode, 4 May 2018
  • To point this out is not to condemn them on the grounds of cowardice.
    — Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 1 Dec. 2022
  • Rather than the brave thing to do, it will be perceived as cowardice.
    — Baltimore Sun Staff, baltimoresun.com, 11 Aug. 2020
  • My cowardice did, and didn’t, astound me.
    — Han Ong, New Yorker, 15 Mar. 2026
  • How much cowardice must persist?
    — Matthew Kelly, Kansas City Star, 26 Jan. 2026
  • As the scene wears on, the camera itself seems moved by cowardice.
    — Amanda Hess, New York Times, 31 Aug. 2022
  • Many cultures tie cowardice and bravery more to the heart or the guts than to the brain.
    — Arash Javanbakht, Discover Magazine, 7 Sep. 2023
  • Better to walk away than be a party to this display of cowardice.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, AZCentral.com, 2 July 2025
  • Tweeting about that woman and her egg salad is an act of moral cowardice.
    — Jon Mooallem, WIRED, 27 Jan. 2014
  • And to be clear, whipping on chains and getting a perm doesn’t make your cowardice look any more cool.
    — John Ridley, Deadline, 21 Feb. 2025
  • This will go down as one of the great acts of cowardice in the recent history of sports.
    — Mike Freeman, USA TODAY, 20 Jan. 2023
  • This is a tale of outright cowardice, but not on Harrell's part.
    — Author: Mary Sanchez, Alaska Dispatch News, 23 July 2017
  • Running away and hiding from his constituents just shows cowardice on his part.
    — Adam Sabes, Fox News, 7 June 2023
  • This was an act of cowardice and cruelty, and sheer mayhem.
    — Greg Norman, FOXNews.com, 8 Aug. 2025
  • There is a strain of cowardice here that now runs down the spine of all American life now.
    — GQ, 11 Oct. 2017
  • At the next mass shooting, act with competence, not cowardice.
    — Fabiola Santiago, miamiherald, 26 Apr. 2018
  • Reporting both sides of the story on the left and right now is denounced as moral cowardice.
    — Oliver Staley, Quartz, 27 Mar. 2021
  • But those who feed ravenously at the trough of fear can also wind up full of cowardice and hysteria.
    — Washington Post, 13 Apr. 2021
  • To dismiss that because of the greater good that followed is moral cowardice plain and simple.
    — Kevin Dickinson, Big Think, 20 Aug. 2025
  • Still, where does Trump’s particular form of cowardice leave the rest of us?
    — Sebastian Junger, The Hive, 25 Apr. 2017
  • Khamenei’s stance is at once recalcitrant and cautious to the point of cowardice.
    — Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 22 June 2025
  • Some people, whether from cowardice or an excess of bravery, refuse to break it even to themselves.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 22 Mar. 2024
  • Not one showed the cowardice of Trump, cringing in a bunker, afraid of his own citizens.
    — The Washington Post, 2 June 2020
  • There is no reason for this except cowardice on the part of civilian politicians far from the long strands of barbed wire.
    — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 8 Mar. 2018
  • That pulling a weapon at a fistfight is a shameful act of cowardice and betrayal of a timeless code.
    — John Archibald | [email protected], al, 18 Aug. 2019
  • Eisinger reveals this story of backpedaling and cowardice through the eyes of the few who resisted it.
    — David Dayen, New Republic, 23 Oct. 2017
  • The censoring of artists and cancellation of shows is an act of cowardice.
    — Ted Johnson, Deadline, 18 Sep. 2025
  • Their cowardice has cost Kyle Beach, then a 20-year-old prospect, more than a decade of anguish.
    — Los Angeles Times, 29 Oct. 2021
  • For their part, the kids see Logan’s cowardice toward Kerry as well, and call it out in kind.
    — Josh Wigler, The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Apr. 2023
  • On the face of it, my behavior looks like the product of an outsized ego twinned with immature cowardice.
    — Holly Thomas, CNN, 29 Mar. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cowardice.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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