3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Acknowledgement: My thanks to pkchan, Sharlene, and Wenjer. I find the terms 懦夫 as 蟲 to be very satisfactory renderings of the word coward. Even the Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations of 蟲 are very close. Although pkchan's examples of the English use of the word pathetic were quite accurate his Chinese rendering of the word seems incomplete. The notion of pathetic includes an element of ridicule that is not captured in either the word pity or sympathy, as my online dictionary define the character 憐. Indeed, sympathy is a term very distant from the notion of pathetic, and it is apparently one of the meanings of 憐. Maybe when used in combination with the word coward the idea comes across. My very best from the land of no mountains surrounded by sea on many sides. "