milquetoast
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Named after Caspar Milquetoast, a character from the comic strip The Timid Soul, created by American cartoonist Harold Tucker Webster (1885–1952) and first published in 1924; the character was named after the American dish milk toast (“a food consisting of toasted bread in warm milk”).
Inflected forms:
form: more milquetoast
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most milquetoast
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: milktoast
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: Milquetoast
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: milquetoasts
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: milktoast
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: Milquetoast
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Meek, timid; lacking character or effectiveness.
pos: adj
tags: derogatory
informal
examples: The truth is that we are cursed with a "milquetoast" Government operating under "milquetoast" policies. Fear has become a national policy.
If Bach had any guts, he wouldn't take that. He's too much of a Milquetoast guy.
I should have listened to my mother when she told me to stay out of journalism because of idiot milquetoast jerk reporters like you!
[Al] Lettieri turns [Sally] Struthers on and she strokes his big gun and waves it (and her big tits) in his face and flaunts her partiality for the tough thug Lettieri over her milquetoast husband.
Like that well-meaning mom, parents employ Milquetoast speech whenever they whine, complain, plead, entreat, entice, bribe, and explain themselves persuasively.
Ricky [Nelson] was the perfect commodity: an artist who did not upset milktoast America. He was Elvis [Presley] without grease, without swinging hips.
And if Dick Leonard didn't appreciate Patrick's incisive criticism—if it inspired a streak of vindictiveness in his usually milquetoast boss and Dick ended up making his assistant's life miserable?
Moreover, "Eva" boasts little style beyond what its biggest star is able to bring to the table. Viewers hoping for more of the milquetoast elegance that [Benoît] Jacquot previously brought to the likes of "Farewell, My Queen" and "Diary of a Chambermaid" will be disappointed.
gloss: A person of meek or timid disposition; a person who lacks character or effectiveness.
pos: noun
tags: derogatory
informal
examples: We know that theology must be common to all believers, but again we also know that some enjoy only milquetoast (german milchspeise), while others can eat solid food, and that one and the same truth is apprehended in different ways, for it is not possible to accommodate all these ways to the grasp of all, while not depriving them of the truth itself.
The Milquetoasts of this world seldom wake up in time to get tough effectively, Mr. [Harold Tucker] Webster fears. [...] Webster considers him a worthy citizen—of the kind that had better begin to show a little more spunk before it is too late.
The Milquetoasts of this world are the victims of the steamrollers. I used to be numbered among the Milquetoasts and was periodically used or flattened! I came to realize, however, that even though Christians are to be humble and cooperative, they also are accountable to God to use their time wisely, to do what He wants them to do, and to stand up for what is right and biblical.
That scientists favored international control of the atom made conservatives even more mistrustful. J[ohn] Parnell Thomas rued the surrender of control to such "a group of milktoasts."
Of the thirteen films he [Douglas Fairbanks] made independently, the most noteworthy was WILD AND WOOLLY (1917), a melodramatic story about an Eastern milquetoast who becomes a frontier hero.
[Clare Boothe Luce] was no woman to be married to a milquetoast, and Henry R[obinson] Luce, cofounder and colorful, forceful honcho of the nascent Time empire, was anything but that.
Initially, our heroine hooks up with some milktoast of a guy with lots of money and little personality. Then he comes along—a man she can't push over, a man her wealth and social position can't influence.
When the verdict comes down, the transformation of the wunderkind founder of Theranos from black-clad genius to besuited milquetoast will be an integral part of the story.
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