chickenshit

• chicken-shit, chicken shit

From chicken +‎ shit.

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chickenshit (comparative more chickenshit, superlative most chickenshit)

1. (slang, vulgar) petty and contemptible; contemptibly unimportant. (Compare bullshit.)
2. (vulgar, slang) cowardly

   How chickenshit of that girl to just stand there and do nothing.

   • 2012, Stephen King, 11/22/63, page 807:

     "How chickenshit do you have to be to go after an old man in a wheelchair?"

chickenshit (countable and uncountable, plural chickenshits)

1. (slang, vulgar) (A) petty and contemptible thing(s).

   Don't waste your time on that chickenshit.

   • 2010 December 15, A.J. Jacobs, “George H.W. Bush*: What I've Learned”, in Esquire‎:

     I went to see Lyndon Johnson, and I was telling him I wanted to run for Senate. And he said, "The difference between the Senate and the House is the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit." Johnson was amazing.

2. (slang, vulgar) coward

   I told him I wasn't having his insults, and he just backed right down. What a chickenshit.

3. (vulgar, military, slang) A low-ranking officer who lords over and needlessly makes life miserable for his underlings; a petty, abusive martinet.

   That chickenshit drove his men nearly to mutiny.

• (coward): coward; (slang:) chicken, pussy, wuss, shithouse
• (petty or contemptible thing): (mostly vulgar:) shit, crap, bullcrap, bullshit, junk, trash, dogshit, Irish bull, horseshit