The process of making someone act in a cowardly manner or filling them with cowardice.
Present participle of 'becoward,' following the same structure: 'be-' + 'coward' + '-ing' (verbal noun suffix). The gerund form emerged in Middle English as verbs took the '-ing' ending to describe ongoing actions.
Many English verbs with 'be-' prefix never caught on beyond Middle and Early Modern English—'becowarding' is a linguistic fossil, preserved mainly in older texts. Most 'be-' verbs that survived (like 'behead' and 'befriend') filled genuine gaps in language, but 'becowarding' was probably just too wordy compared to simpler alternatives.
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