Editing Cowardice

{{Short description|Excess of fear}}
{{redirect|Coward}}
{{use dmy dates |date=September 2020 }}
[[Image:Cowardly lion2.jpg|right|thumb|The [[Cowardly Lion]], from ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]'']]
'''Cowardice''' is a characteristic wherein excessive [[fear]] prevents an individual from taking a risk or facing danger.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/cowardly|title=Cowardly definition and meaning {{!}} Collins English Dictionary|website=www.collinsdictionary.com|language=en-US|access-date=2019-07-05}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coward |website=Merriam Webster |title=Coward|date=19 March 2024 }}</ref> It is the opposite of [[courage]]. As a label, "cowardice"  indicates a failure of character in the face of a challenge. One who succumbs to cowardice is known as a '''coward'''.<ref>{{cite web |work=[[Dictionary.reference.com]] |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cowardice |title=cowardice |quote=[the] lack of courage to face danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc. |access-date=24 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070428074633/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cowardice |archive-date=28 April 2007 |publisher=[[reference.com]] |agency=Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. |url-status=live |df=dmy-all }}</ref>

As the opposite of [[bravery]], which many historical and current human societies reward, cowardice is seen as a character flaw that is detrimental to society and thus the failure to face one's fear is often stigmatized or punished.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://aeon.co/essays/why-it-s-brave-and-prudent-to-think-like-a-coward | title=Why it's brave and prudent to think like a coward &#124; Aeon Essays }}</ref>

==Etymology==
According to the ''[[Online Etymology Dictionary]]'', the word ''coward'' came into English from the [[Old French]] word ''coart'' (modern French [[wikt:couard|''couard'']]), which is a combination of the word for "tail" (Modern French ''queue'', [[Latin]] ''cauda'') and an [[agent (grammar)|agent]] [[noun]] [[suffix]]. It would therefore have meant "one with a tail", which may conjure an image of an animal displaying its tail in flight of fear ("turning tail"), or a [[dog]]'s habit of putting its tail between its legs when it is afraid. Like many other English words of French origin, this word was introduced in the English language by the French-speaking [[Normans]], after the [[Norman conquest of England]] in 1066.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://faculty.uml.edu/jgarreau/FromFrenchtoEnglish.htm |title=From French to English:Surprising Etymology |work=Department of Languages of the [[UMASS Lowell]] |access-date=16 December 2015 |first=Joseph E. |last=Garreau}}</ref>

The [[Coward (surname)|English surname Coward]] (as in [[Noël Coward]]), however, has the same origin and meaning as the word "cowherd".

==Military law==
Acts of cowardice have long been punishable by military law, which defines a wide range of cowardly offenses, including [[desertion]] in face of the enemy and surrendering to the enemy against orders. The punishment for such acts is typically severe, ranging from [[corporal punishment]] to the [[Capital punishment|death sentence]].<ref>"Any person found guilty of desertion or attempt to desert shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct, but if the desertion or attempt to desert occurs at any other time, by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct." 

* 10 U.S. Code § 885 - Art. 85.-[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/885 "Desertion"]</ref>

The [[United States]] [[military law|military codes of justice]] define cowardice in [[combat]] as a crime punishable by [[death]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=10 U.S. Code § 899 - Art. 99. Misbehavior before the enemy|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/899|access-date=2020-08-19|website=LII / Legal Information Institute|language=en}}</ref>

Generally, cowardice was punishable by [[execution]] during [[World War I]], and those who were caught were often court-martialed and, in many cases, [[executed by firing squad]]. British soldiers executed for cowardice were often not commemorated on war memorials, and their families often did not receive benefits and had to endure [[social stigma]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Executed WW1 soldiers to be given pardons |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/aug/16/military.immigrationpolicy |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=16 August 2006 |access-date=24 February 2019 |first=Richard |last=Norton-Taylor |author-link=Richard Norton-Taylor |publisher=[[Guardian News & Media Limited]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Call to rethink cases of French WWI 'coward' soldiers |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24356041 |work=[[BBC News]] |date=1 October 2013 |access-date=24 February 2019 |publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref> However, many decades later, those soldiers all received posthumous pardons in the UK [[Armed Forces Act 2006#Pardon|Armed Forces Act 2006]] and have been commemorated with the [[Shot at Dawn Memorial]]. Unlike British, Canadian, French, German, and Russian forces, the U.S. military tried soldiers for cowardice, but never followed through with execution while German commanders were less inclined to use execution as a form of punishment.<ref>{{cite book |title=World War I Almanac |first=David R. |last=Woodward |page=28 |publisher=[[Infobase Publishing]] |year=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p1aFgdhqYAcC&pg=PA28 |isbn=9781438118963}}</ref>

Considerable controversy was generated by military historian [[S.L.A. Marshall]], who claimed that 75% of U.S. combat troops in World War II never fired at the enemy for the purpose of killing, even while under direct threat.  [[Dave Grossman (author)|Author Dave Grossman]] attempted to explain these findings in his book ''[[On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society]]''. Marshall's findings were later challenged as mistaken or even fabricated,<ref>{{cite journal |first=Robert |last=Engen |url=http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vo9/no2/16-engen-eng.asp |title= Killing for Their Country: A New Look At "Killology" |journal=[[Canadian Military Journal]] |volume=9 |issue=2 |access-date=8 May 2011 |quote=As a military historian, I am instinctively skeptical of any work or theory that claims to overturn all existing scholarship – indeed, overturn an entire academic discipline – in one fell swoop...[however] Lieutenant Colonel Grossman’s appeals to biology and psychology are flawed, and that the bulwark of his historical evidence – S.L.A. Marshall’s assertion that soldiers do not fire their weapons – can be verifiably disproven. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721211742/http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vo9/no2/16-engen-eng.asp  |archive-date=21 July 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=S.L.A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire |first=Roger J. |last=Spiller |periodical=[[RUSI Journal]] |date=Winter 1988  |pages=63–71 |url=http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051210174158/http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm |archive-date=10 December 2005 |via=War Chronicle}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.americanheritage.com/index.php/content/secret-soldiers-who-didn%E2%80%99t-shoot  |title=The Secret Of The Soldiers Who Didn't Shoot |first=Fredric |last=Smoler |magazine=[[American Heritage (magazine)|American Heritage]] |date=March 1989 |volume=40 |issue=2 |access-date=24 February 2019}}</ref> and were not replicated in a more rigorous study of Canadian troops in World War II.<ref>{{cite thesis |url=http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/bitstream/1974/1081/1/Engen_Robert_C_200803_MA.pdf |title=Canadians Against Fire: Canada's Soldiers and Marshall's "Ratio of Fire" 1944-1945 |first=Robert Charles |last=Engen |date=March 2008 |access-date=24 February 2019 |publisher=[[Queen's University at Kingston|Queen's University]] |location=Kingston, Ontario |pages=142 |hdl=1974/1081|type=Thesis }}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Fear]]
*[[Sissy]]
*[[Pussy]]
*[[Virtue]]
*[[Weakness]]

==References==
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==External links==
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[[Category:Military law]]
[[Category:Fear]]
[[Category:Courage]]