dastardly

adjective, dated

their dastardly plan to kidnap Hayes

Syn:

wicked, evil, heinous, villainous, diabolical, fiendish, barbarous, cruel, black, dark, rotten, vile, monstrous, abominable, despicable, degenerate, sordid; bad, base, mean, low, dishonorable, dishonest, unscrupulous, unprincipled; informal lowdown, dirty, shady, rascally, crooked; beastly

Ant:

noble

••

dastard, dastardly

Dastard (= coward) is commonly muddled because of the sound association with its harsher rhyme, bastard. Although English usage authority H. W. Fowler insisted that dastard should be reserved for "one who avoids all personal risk", modern American writers tend to use it as a printable euphemism for the more widely objectionable epithet — e.g.: "Samuel Ramey is the dastard of the piece, the treacherous, lecherous, murderous Assur." (Los Angeles Times; May 22, 1994.) British writers, on the other hand, have remained truer to the word's original sense — e.g.: "Last week I moved house from London to Brighton but like a genuine spineless dastard I flatly denied its implications on personal relationships to the last." (Times [London]; Feb. 8, 1994.) Recent American dictionaries record one meaning of dastard as being "dishonorable, despicable" or "treacherously underhanded." So the new meaning should probably now be considered standard.

Like the noun form, the adjective dastardly has been subjected to slipshod extension. Although most dictionaries define it merely as "cowardly", it is now often used as if it meant "sneaky and underhanded; treacherous" — e.g.: "He's b-a-a-a-c-k. Dastardly J. R. Ewing and his oft-manipulated clan rise from TV dustdom to air three times a day on TNN, Cable Channel 37, beginning Monday." (Tulsa World; Sept. 27, 1996.) — BG