Word of the Day

: November 24, 2018

audacious

adjective aw-DAY-shus

What It Means

1 a : intrepidly daring : adventurous

b : recklessly bold : rash

2 : contemptuous of law, religion, or decorum : insolent

3 : marked by originality and verve

audacious in Context

The band has been making original and creative music for well over ten years, but their latest album is by far their most audacious to date.

"[Patrick Mahomes] has already thrown 14 touchdown passes without an interception, and his ability to make plays when everything breaks down—like that audacious left-handed pass against the Broncos—has turned him into an early MVP front-runner." — Dave Skretta, The Cincinnati (Ohio) Enquirer, 7 Oct. 2018

Did You Know?

Audacious first appeared in English in the mid-1500s. It was borrowed from the Middle French adjective audacieux, which was derived from the noun audace ("boldness, audacity"). Audace came from the Latin audacia, a derivative of the Latin root audac- ("bold"). Audac- is also the source of audacity, which appeared in Middle English (as audacite) in the 1400s. Audac- can be traced, by way of the Latin verb audēre ("to dare"), to the Latin adjective avidus ("eager" or "greedy"), which was also borrowed by English, either directly from Latin or via the French avide, to give us our adjective avid. Among the early adopters of audacious was William Shakespeare, who used the word seven times in his plays, as in Henry VI, Part 2, where Somerset addresses York with the lines, "I arrest thee, York, / Of capital treason 'gainst the King and crown. / Obey, audacious traitor, kneel for grace."