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Human history teems with dauntless people, doughty folks who refused to be cowed or subdued, even if armed with nothing but the courage of their convictions. The existence of dauntless raises this question: can one be full of daunt? Not anymore—the noun daunt, meaning “discouragement” or “intimidation,” has been obsolete for centuries, though dauntless remains as a clue to its past use. But daunt is (and has been since the 14th century) a verb; we define it as “to lessen the courage of; to cow or subdue.” Introduced via Anglo-French, its ultimate source lies in the Latin verb domare, meaning “to tame” or “to subdue.” The idea of being subdued persists in today’s daunt, but the idea of being tamed was formerly present too: until at least the 16th century, horses trained to behave in ways useful to humans—that is, horses that were broken—could be said to be “daunted.” Not until the late 16th century did we use undaunted with the meaning “undiscouraged and courageously resolute” to describe people. By then, such lionhearted souls could also be described as “undauntable” as well as “dauntless.”
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Examples of dauntless in a Sentence
Thomas Doherty, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 July 2023
In Zelenskyy, Russia has found a dauntless opponent whose refusal to leave the capital has boosted his international image and helped secure billions of dollars of military aid, most of it from the Biden administration.
—Richard Engel, NBC News, 15 June 2023
She’s supported by a visiting world traveler and a cast of dauntless women: a lawyer regaining her practice, a dancer finding movement in devotion, a recent widow committed to the core, a divorcee seeing more than security in her roots, and an indie gig striver deep with poetry.
—Teresa M. Hanafin, BostonGlobe.com, 4 June 2023
Their mission was to maintain these historic trails with a sustainable tourism model that protects the cultural and environmental integrity of the awe-inspiring landscape and its cast of dauntless fishermen that called this place o fim de mundo, the end of the world.
—Jamie Ditaranto, Travel + Leisure, 1 Feb. 2022
Chips, a combat canine serving with the 3rd Infantry Division in Sicily in 1943, became a U.S. Army legend when the dauntless dog attacked a machine gun emplacement and — despite suffering a gunshot wound — forced the garrison to surrender.
—Kerry J. Byrne, Fox News, 13 Mar. 2023
What separates Dortch, according to Kingsbury, is the former Wake Forest standout’s dauntless exploits.
—Bob McManaman, The Arizona Republic, 5 Aug. 2022
The dauntless pair always maintained a sense of mischief and humor, at one point frying eggs over the heat of volcanic rocks.
—Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY, 9 Feb. 2023
The committee’s report is the fullest record yet of the conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election, much of it deriving from the dauntless work of earlier reporters, much of it newly gathered by the committee itself.
—Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, 9 Jan. 2023
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These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dauntless.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Dauntless.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dauntless. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.
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