Hi, Anton! Recently you wrote in a message to Dallas Hinton:
I've never seen the word used as an adjective. I suspect
it's an archaic usage. The Cambridge dictionary doesn't
define it as an adjective (listing only "cowardly"),
same for Merriam-Webster, Collins, and the Britannica
Dictionary. The Oxford dictionary shows it used an
adjective but last used in 1818!
1913 Webster lists `coward' as an adjective:
<http://dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=gcide&Query=coward>
My 1983 GAGE CANADIAN DICTIONARY also lists it as an adjective, but in my experience this usage was rare at the time of publication.... :-)
I think `coward' /can/ be an adjective by virtue of the
ability of nouns in English to become adjectives in certain
cirsumstances, such as:
systems (vs. systematic) programming
fall guy
finger man
glass (not glassy) jar.
or
gravel road
pine cone
sob sister
spider vein
... AKA noun adjectives or attributive nouns. :-)
that said, `coward' is no more an ajective than `widow' in
the famous tautology `widow woman'.
I ran across "widow woman" as an example of tautology as well. But in this case "woman" is redundant because a widow is by definition female, and if a male finds himself in a similar position he is a widower where I come from. :-)
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)
