Fellow protege, extremely lazy and faint-hearted (8)
I believe the answer is:
cowardly
'faint-hearted' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'fellow protege extremely lazy' is the wordplay.
'fellow' becomes 'co' (I've seen this in other clues**).
'protege' becomes 'ward'.
'extremely' suggests removing the centre.
'lazy' with its middle taken out is 'ly'.
'co'+'ward'+'ly'='COWARDLY'
'and' is the link.
(Other definitions for cowardly that I've seen before include "Yellow" , "Lacking courage" , "chicken" , "Faint-hearted" , "Lily-livered" .)