timorous

Etymology

Borrowed into late Middle English from Old French temoros, from Medieval Latin timorosus, from Latin timor (“fear”), from timeō (“I fear”). Doublet of timoroso.

adj

1. Fearful; afraid; timid.
   Wee sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie, Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! 1785, Robert Burns, To a Mouse
   [H]e was one of those weak creatures full of a shifty cunning - who face neither God nor man, who face not even themselves, void of pride, timorous, anæmic, hateful souls. 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 219
   The suspect was a man of forty, with a grey, timorous face, dressed only in a ragged longyi kilted to the knee, beneath which his lank, curved shins were specked with tick-bites. 1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days