Made cowardly or filled with cowardice; reduced to a state of cowardly behavior.
From the prefix 'be-' (meaning to make or cause to be) combined with 'coward' (from Old French coart, meaning timid person). The suffix '-ed' indicates a completed state or condition.
The 'be-' prefix is a hidden gem in English that lets us turn almost any adjective into a verb meaning 'to make' or 'to cause'—which is why you can 'befriend' someone, 'belittle' them, or 'becalm' the seas. It's an old way of word-building that gave us over 100 historical verbs, most now forgotten except in literature.
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