intrepid
adjective
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Don't Be Afraid to Learn About Intrepid
If you’re going to name a ship, whether an aircraft carrier or an interstellar starship, you could do worse than to name it the Intrepid, as both the United States military and Star Trek writers have done, respectively. (Technically “Intrepid” is a class of Trek ships that includes the Voyager, etc., but you get the drift.) Intrepid, after all, comes from the Latin word intrepidus, itself formed by the combination of the prefix in-, meaning “not,” and the adjective trepidus, meaning “alarmed.” When not designating sea or space vessels, intrepid aptly describes anyone—from explorers to reporters—who ventures bravely into unknown territory, though often you’ll see the word loaded with irony, as in “an intrepid couch surfer endeavored to watch every installment of the beloved sci-fi series in chronological order.” Intrepid word lovers may be interested to know of the existence of trepid, meaning “fearful”; it predates intrepid but most are too trepid (or simply unaware of its existence) to use it.
Examples of intrepid in a Sentence
Jonathan Chait, New York Times Book Review, 3 Feb. 2008
Author and explorer Dame Freya Stark was one of the most intrepid adventurers of all time. (T. E. Lawrence, no slouch in the travel department himself, called her "gallant" and "remarkable.")
—Kimberly Robinson, Travel & Leisure, December 1999
Meanwhile, the intrepid Florentine traveler Marco Polo had been to China and brought back with him a noodle dish that became Italian pasta …
—Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages, 1993
an intrepid explorer who probed parts of the rain forest never previously attempted
Jeryl Brunner, Forbes.com, 3 June 2025
The theory goes that about 60,000 years ago, a few intrepid bed bugs hopped off of a bat and clung to a Neanderthal walking out of a cave.
—Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 28 May 2025
Four intrepid sleuths crack case after case with their unconventional investigative approaches — and illusive fashion, from distracting hats to reassuring blazers.
—Fawnia Soo Hoo, HollywoodReporter, 28 May 2025
In recent years, activists — specifically from within the Indigenous community — have moved to dismantle the mythology surrounding Columbus as an intrepid and pioneering explorer, instead shining light on his legacy of Native American colonization and violence.
—Natalie Oganesyan, Deadline, 27 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for intrepid
Cite this Entry
“Intrepid.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intrepid. Accessed 10 Jun. 2025.
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intrepid
adjective
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