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I'm looking for a word or a characteristic to describe someone that is "All bark and no bite"?

Describes someone who often says cutting remarks, but actually has a soft personality underneath.

Its okay, I know that Danny is a little mean, but he's all bark and no bite.

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  • I've retagged this correctly (you need the -request tags when looking for something). Please take a moment to review the detailed tag info: the single-word-request tag has a lot of requirements which are relevant to all such requests, including phrases and idioms.
    – Andrew Leach
    Mar 1, 2018 at 14:24
  • Is this good enough for the tag? Mar 1, 2018 at 15:37
  • Danny is a sheep in wolf's clothing.
    – JonLarby
    Mar 1, 2018 at 15:53

2 Answers 2

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Danny is harmless.

From vocabulary.com:

... If your friend is scared of dogs, you can reassure her by saying, "Sure, he's 150 pounds and has a loud bark, but Fido is harmless!" Things that are safe or benign don't cause harm, and are therefore harmless, like your dad's harmless teasing or a compostable paper plate that's harmless to the environment.


The word is used in the sense you mean often enough, but it only works when the all bark part is already established, which is preferably just before the remark.

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Its okay, I know that Danny is a little mean, but he's also spineless.

M-W dictionary

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