Milquetoast
According to the Random House Dictionary, the term milquetoast refers to "a very timid, unassertive, spineless person, esp. one who is easily dominated or intimidated".[1]
The term comes from a character in Harold T. Webster's 1924-1953 New York Herald Tribune comic strip The Timid Soul. The character's name was Caspar Milquetoast; Webster described him as “the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick”.[2] The name is a Frenchified reference to the dish "milk toast", toast soaked in milk, which was fed to the sick.[3] The term milksop (untoasted bread soaked in milk[4]) has been used since the fourteenth century to refer to "a weak or ineffectual person",[5] "an effeminate or weak-minded person",[6] or "a man lacking courage and other qualities deemed manly".[7]
| “ | And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow, / Long kept in Brittany at our mother's cost, / A milksop, one that never in his life / Felt so much cold as overshoes in snow? --William Shakespeare, Richard III[8] | ” |
References
- ↑ Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc., "milquetoast.", 15 Mar. 2009. [1]
- ↑ World Wide Words, MILQUETOAST, by Michael Quinion, 1 Jun 2002
- ↑ Don Markstein's Toonopedia™, THE TIMID SOUL
- ↑ Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, "milksop", 15 Mar. 2009
- ↑ Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. "milksoppy" 15 Mar. 2009. [2]
- ↑ "milksop." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 15 Mar. 2009. [3]
- ↑ "milksop." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 15 Mar. 2009. [4]
- ↑ William Shakespeare, Richard III