milquetoast

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The Word of the Day for April 27 is:

milquetoast   \MILK-toast\   noun
     : a timid, meek, or unassertive person

Example sentence:
     Brian was such a milquetoast that he agreed to work extra 
hours on Sunday even though he had already told his boss that he 
needed that day off.

Did you  know? 
     Caspar Milquetoast was a comic strip character created in 
1924 by the American cartoonist Harold T. Webster. The strip, 
called "The Timid Soul," ran every Sunday in the _New York 
Herald Tribune_ for many years. Webster, who claimed that 
Milquetoast was a self-portrait, summed up the character as "the 
man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick." The 
earliest examples we could find for "Milquetoast" used as a 
generic synonym for "timid person" date from the mid-1930s. 
Caspar's last name might remind you of "milk toast," a bland 
concoction of buttered toast served in a dish of warm milk.