Why does yellow mean scared

It has been suggested that yellow-bellied, meaning a coward, may have been inspired by chicken egg yolks being yellow and chicken meaning coward. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Becky G. Enjoy this article? It may not display this or other websites correctly.

You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Standard Japanese, Sendaian Japanese. Let's go into the old abandoned house if you are not yellow meaning cowardly. Click to expand This site doesn't think so: yellow-bellied - Dictionary Definition. English - South-East England. Is it used any more? It makes me think of pre-War American movies. I'm sure I've never heard it in real life. I ran into the use while looking up another sense of the word in a dictionary.

Seems like it's not in use any longer at least in BE. I wonder about AE. I've never heard 'yellow' to mean 'cowardly' in real life either. Chez Senior Member London. It is just as likely that 'yellow-belly' didn't refer to a person's complexion and had no literal meaning, but was simply a piece of nonsense name-calling - somewhat akin to 'lily-livered'.

There is also a story about the Wexford hurling team that was raised by Sir Caesar Colclough to play a match against a team from Cornwall, in the late 16th century.

This has a literal element, in that the Wexford players played with yellow cloth tied around their waist to distinguish them from Cornwall, and this caused them to be nicknamed The Yellowbellies. Wexford do still play in yellow and the name has stuck, although it isn't clear when the nickname was first used.

This story, in as much as it can be verified at all at this late date, has no connotations of cowardice. The team might just as likely been called the bluebellies or greenbellies if different material had been available on the day. For that sense we have to travel to the USA.

The screenplay of a B-feature western wasn't complete without a selection from the list of stock cowboy lingo. You were as likely to find a coward that wasn't called a yellow-belly as you were to see the Lone Ranger without his mask.