EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR POLTROON
He was certainly no poltroon, but he felt that she was right.
"I am not a poltroon though," he said to himself as he finished dressing.
He had slipped away like the poltroon that he was, leaving Peter to his fate.
This is the charge which will always make the poltroon squirm.
If it was that poltroon, Ferdinand, I would have him thrown out by my lackeys.
Poltroon were he who had gone to bed before twelve on Noche-buena.
A traitor is a despicable character, while a poltroon is only contemptible.
He had played the villain, perhaps, but he would not play the poltroon.
Far be from me such disgrace as that, like a poltroon, I should stain my arms by flight.
The likes o' ye an' that poltroon, Jay, up there in New York.
WORD ORIGIN
"A coward; a nidgit; a scoundrel" [Johnson, who spells it poltron], 1520s, from Middle French poultron "rascal, coward" (16c., Modern French poltron), from Italian poltrone "lazy fellow, coward," apparently from *poltro "couch, bed" (cf. Milanese polter, Venetian poltrona "couch"), perhaps from a Germanic source (cf. Old High German polstar "pillow;" see bolster (n.)). Cf. also -oon.