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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.”
Synonyms of dauntless
Adjective
Examples of dauntless in a Sentence
Annie Leibovitz, Vogue, 22 Apr. 2026
The self-belief that drove her to be a champion on ice is no better highlighted than in her dauntless piercing experience.
—Amarachi Orie, CNN Money, 20 Feb. 2026
The Washington Post had tremendous glamour (Ben Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein, Sally Quinn, its dauntless owner Katherine Graham) and clout, and this was a resource the editors and writers in Book World could draw upon for their own purposes.
—Literary Hub, 10 Feb. 2026
Yet stocks are at all-time highs Monday, dauntless even in the face of a major week of catalysts that includes earnings results from five of the Magnificent Seven companies, and a Federal Reserve meeting later this week.
—Sarah Min, CNBC, 27 Oct. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Dauntless.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dauntless. Accessed 12 Jun. 2026.
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