Pusillanimity is a long, stiff noun for a small kind of fear: the fear of taking even a little risk. It is not the fear you feel when a car comes too close. It is the fear of speaking, of trying, of being seen to fail. A person who shows pusillanimity pulls back from things that are not truly dangerous, and stays in the safe, narrow place. Though actually, almost nobody says this word at the dinner table. You will meet it in essays, in old books, and when a writer wants a cold, judging tone. In ordinary talk people say cowardice, or they say someone is chicken, or they simply say they were too scared. Those everyday words can sound unkind. Pusillanimity names a smallness of spirit — a heart that will not grow to the size of the moment — and it does so from a distance. Use it when you are reading hard English, not when you are talking to a friend about a test.

膽怯、怯懦（很文的書面語；日常較常說「膽小」）