chickenshit

Petty; contemptibly unimportant. (Compare bullshit.)

Cowardly.

How chickenshit of that girl to just stand there and do nothing.

"How chickenshit do you have to be to go after an old man in a wheelchair?"

A petty and contemptible thing or things.

Don't waste your time on that chickenshit.

I went to see Lyndon Johnson, and I was telling him I wanted to run for Senate. And he said, "The difference between the Senate and the House is the difference between chicken salad and chicken shit." Johnson was amazing.

A coward.

I told him I wasn't having his insults, and he just backed right down. What a chickenshit.

A low-ranking officer who lords over and needlessly makes life miserable for his underlings; a petty, abusive martinet.

That chickenshit drove his men nearly to mutiny.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see chicken, shit: chicken manure.