gutless wonder
3
9.9
- noun
- /ˈɡʌtləs ˈwʌndər/
- Offensive
:
cobarde
- Many people view him as a gutless wonder for not taking risks in his career.
Examples
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Obama, the gutless wonder, has offered no leadership to help us face our inevitable debt.
Blog text (2) -
He's known as a gutless wonder because he never stands up for what he believes in.
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I'm being sort of a gutless wonder here.
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Yes, a house full of gutless wonders.
Blog text (30) -
I'm still waiting for one of you gutless wonders to show up at any town meeting.
Blog text (5) -
Go visit the frontier, you gutless wonders!
Blog text (28) -
Climate change and energy have proven without a doubt that American politicians, both parties, are gutless wonders.
Blog text (29) -
The next day I was too weak to go out, and my uncle kidded me and called me "The gutless wonder from Cincinnati."
Fiction book (1997) -
He's a gutless wonder.
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During the debate, he acted like a gutless wonder by avoiding tough questions.
Synonyms
584
2.3
A person who is too afraid to face danger or hard things
1
7.7
A person expected to be brave but who acts afraid
Antonyms
How Brave
Surface Forms
Morphology
gutless + wonder
The meaning 'a person who lacks courage' is directly derivable from 'gutless' (lacking guts/courage) combined with a noun label for a person; the overall sense is compositional rather than idiomatic. Although the dictionary entry for 'wonder' is missing, in this phrase it functions simply as a nominal tag and does not block comprehension, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Gutless wonder paints a simple picture: someone called gutless has no 'guts', which means no bravery, and calling them a wonder is a mocking way to show that weakness. So it means 'a coward' or someone who lacks courage.