Dauntlessness Definition & Meaning

Did you know?

The history of the world is peopled with dauntless men and women who refused to be "subdued" or "tamed" by fear. The word dauntless can be traced back to Latin domare, meaning "to tame" or "to subdue." When our verb daunt (a domare descendant adopted by way of Anglo-French) was first used in the 14th century, it shared these meanings. The now-obsolete "tame" sense referred to the taming or breaking of wild animals, particularly horses: an undaunted horse was an unbroken horse. 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."

Examples of dauntless in a Sentence

dauntless heroes who are inclined to rush to danger, not away from it

Recent Examples on the Web In a story within the story, the dauntless Shahrzad visits the angry king and soothes him with tales, winning relief for his people. — Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 11 Mar. 2022 Against all these handicaps, Fritz Pollard plays with dauntless spirit. — Dana Hunsinger Benbow, The Indianapolis Star, 10 Feb. 2022 But for now, two of this continent’s most dauntless hikers are done. — Grayson Haver Currin, Outside Online, 7 Jan. 2022 But the world could explode in a fiery ball of chaos and still our dauntless Housewives would keep boldly moving forward. — Mary Sollosi, EW.com, 17 Dec. 2021 Michelangelo, whose dauntless achievements Steinberg returned to again and again, is the subject of the first two volumes. — Jed Perl, The New York Review of Books, 13 May 2021 The job falls, nonetheless, to the dauntless Beanie Feldstein. — Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 5 Nov. 2021 Michelangelo, whose dauntless achievements Steinberg returned to again and again, is the subject of the first two volumes. — Jed Perl, The New York Review of Books, 13 May 2021 Michelangelo, whose dauntless achievements Steinberg returned to again and again, is the subject of the first two volumes. — Jed Perl, The New York Review of Books, 13 May 2021 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dauntless.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.