Wednesday, August 8, 2007

#11

milksop \MILK-sop\, noun:
An effeminate or weak-minded person; an unmanly man.

But though intelligent and 'good tempered', he was also something of a milksop, unlike his younger brothers who were 'full of courage'.
-- Saul David, Prince of Pleasure

And what a milksop I'll be thought and what a tyrant you'll be thought and how you'll be dreaded accordingly.
-- John Butler Yeats, quoted in W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 1 by R. F. Foster


Milksop comes from Middle English, literally a piece of bread sopped in milk.



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