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tromboninator,

Your pun made we wonder whether coward might be etymologically related to cow or cowed. The OxED has two different etymologies. For coward it has:

Forms: ME cueard, cuard, ME cuward, couard, couward, couwarde, couherde, ME–15 cowart, cowarde, ME cowerd, koward(e, 15 cowert, cow-heard, cow-herdME– coward.

Etymology: < Old French coart (cohart , cuard , cowairt , later couart , couard ) = Provençal coart , Italian codardo , < coda , Latin cauda , Old French coe tail: see -ard suffix.

For cow, it has:

Forms: sing.OE–ME cu, ME ku, ME–15 cou, kou, kow, ME–16 cowe, kowe, (ME cough, 15 coowe), ME– cow. Plural cows, kine /ka?n/ , north. kye /ka?/ .

Etymology: A Common Germanic and Common Indo-germanic word: Old English cú = Old Frisian kú, Old Saxon có (Middle Dutch koe, Dutch koe, Low German ko), Old High German chuo (Middle High German kuo, German kuh), Icelandic kýr accusative and dative kú ( < kû-z, Swedish, Danish ko, koe) < Old Germanic *k?u-z, *kô-z, feminine < Aryan gw?us, accusative gw?m, whence Sanskrit g?ús, g?m, gav-, go-, Greek ????, ???-, ??-, Latin b?s, bov-, bo-, ox; the word being of both genders outside Germanic.

As one might expect, cowed is derived from the noun.