timid

timid, *timorous both mean so fearful and apprehensive as to hesitate or hold back. Timid stresses lack of courage and daring and usually implies extreme cautiousness and fearfulness of change or of venture into the unknown or uncertain

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a timid investor

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timid as a deer

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timid about making decisions

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a timid person would rather remain miserable than do anything unusual— Russell

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Timorous stresses domination by fears and apprehensions; it implies a temporary or habitual frame of mind which causes one to shrink from an action or activity which requires independence, decision, or self-assertiveness and suggests terror rather than extreme caution

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Murray, the most timorous, as Byron called him, of all God's booksellers— Scott

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in another moment she seemed to have descended from her womanly eminence to helpless and timorous girlhood— Wharton

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timorous and fearful of challenge— Mencken

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Analogous words: *fearful, apprehensive, afraid: *cautious, circumspect, calculating, wary, chary

Contrasted words: *brave, courageous, unafraid, fearless, intrepid, valiant, bold, audacious