You got the NERD!!! part right.

Tee hee - thanks for the all caps and exclamation points - nice touch

I just like the word pusillanimous (then again, who wouldn't? :)

Here's the data from etymonline, my go-to nerdsite:

pussy (n.1)

"cat," by 1690s, a diminutive of puss (n.1)*, also used of a rabbit (1715). As a term of endearment for a girl or woman, from 1580s (also used of effeminate men), and applied childishly to anything soft and furry. To play pussy was World War II RAF slang for "take advantage of cloud cover, jumping from cloud to cloud to shadow a potential victim or avoid recognition." Related entries & more pussy (n.2)

slang for "female pudenda," by 1879, but probably older; perhaps from Old Norse puss "pocket, pouch" (compare Low German puse "vulva"), or perhaps instead from the cat word (see pussy (n.1)) on the notion of "soft, warm, furry thing;" compare French le chat, which also has a double meaning, feline and genital. Earlier uses are difficult to distinguish from pussy (n.1), e.g.:

The word pussie is now used of a woman [Philip Stubbes, "The Anatomie of Abuses," 1583]

And songs such as "Puss in a Corner" (1690, attributed to D'Urfey) clearly play on the double sense of the word for ribald effect. But the absence of pussy in Grose and other early slang works argues against the vaginal sense being generally known before late 19c., as does its frequent use as a term of endearment in mainstream literature, as in:

"What do you think, pussy?" said her father to Eva. [Harriet Beecher Stowe, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 1852]

Pussy-whipped "hen-pecked" is attested by 1956 (Middle English had cunt-beaten "impotent," in reference to a man, mid-15c.).

*Here's the entry for puss (n.1):

"cat," 1520s, but probably much older than the record, perhaps imitative of the hissing sound commonly used to get a cat's attention or the noise made by the cat in hissing. The same or similar sound is a conventional name for a cat in Germanic languages and as far off as Afghanistan; it is the root of the principal word for "cat" in Rumanian (pisica) and secondary words in Lithuanian (puž, word used for calling a cat), Low German (puus), Swedish dialect katte-pus, Irish puisin "a kitten," etc.

Applied to a girl or woman from c. 1600, originally in a negative sense, implying unpleasant cat-like qualities, but by mid-19c. in affectionate use.

The little puss seems already to have airs enough to make a husband as miserable as it's a law of nature for a quiet man to be when he marries a beauty. ["George Eliot," "Adam Bede," 1859]