audacity

American  

[aw-das-i-tee] / ɔˈdæs ɪ ti /

noun

• audacities
  plural

1. 

   boldness or daring, especially with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions.

   Synonyms:

   foolhardiness, temerity, grit, spunk, nerve

   Antonyms:

   prudence, discretion

2. effrontery or insolence; shameless boldness.

   His questioner's audacity shocked the lecturer.

   Synonyms:

   brashness, impertinence, impudence

   Antonyms:

   discretion, prudence

3. Usually audacities audacious or particularly bold or daring acts or statements.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• audacities
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of audacity

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English audacite, equivalent to Latin audāc- (stem of audāx “bold, daring”) + -ity

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Explanation

If you have audacity then you're one daring — and perhaps reckless — character. Running a red light with three previous tickets under your belt certainly shows audacity. And stupidity. The noun audacity developed from the Latin word audacitas, which means “boldness." So someone who shows audacity makes bold moves — and isn't afraid of the consequences. Audacity can be admired or frowned upon, depending how far it's taken and how it rears its head. But as former British Prime Minister and novelist Benjamin Disraeli once said, “Success is the child of audacity.”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

audacity audacities

The proposal is breathtaking in its audacity, so much so that you could be forgiven for being distracted by all the elements and missing the bigger picture.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 6, 2026

He railed against Rama’s audacity in offering up parts of Albania for sale at business meetings with men in suits.

From Slate ● Sep. 8, 2026

It's so stupid and basic, and yet it scratches a tried-and-tested musical itch with such precision that you have to admire its audacity.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

This was shockingly unbookish behavior made worse by flabbergasting audacity.

From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2026

Someone who had the audacity to feel like he was the cool one when he so obviously wasn’t.

From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon

Watching “The Goldfinch,” I found myself fantasizing about one of the possible audacities that the movie, absent Theo’s unifying voice, could have hazarded.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 18, 2019

Besides a light show with a simulated jungle made by hundreds of floor-to-ceiling twisty elastic bands, their presentation didn’t rely on expensive mechanical audacities; it resorted to what the program described as an “analogue inventiveness.”

From Washington Post ● Aug. 5, 2016

While watching “Diary of a Teenage Girl,” I tried to imagine the superb movie that it nearly is, the one that Minnie’s passionate audacities could have sparked.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 7, 2015

An astounded Paris critic summed up his achievement: "Charles Ives seems to have created, before the Sacre du Printemps, a style which by its audacities places its author among the pioneers of music."

From Time Magazine Archive

His technique was precise, careful, and rather laborious, without any happy audacities of brushwork, and without any display of cleverness for its own sake.

From Leighton by A. Lys Baldry

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Related Words

• chutzpah
• gall
• guts
• spunk

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