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

It is a living memorial to a president who was taken from us too soon, a man who had the audacity to aim for the moon before the science existed to get us there.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026

"We hope the humour, ingenuity and audacity she brought to her work may continue to inspire you as it will do us."

From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026

This was shockingly unbookish behavior made worse by flabbergasting audacity.

From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2026

Then he has the audacity to use my grandmother’s dashiki to dab his mouth before collapsing in bliss.

From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer

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

The nostalgia that turns critics away from many of the most bravely original films today is itself a byproduct of the neoclassical audacities of the New Wave.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 2, 2015

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

An earlier attempt to dramatize Autour du mariage was a failure, not owing to the audacities which it shares with most of its author’s works, but from lack of cohesion and incident.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 7 "Gyantse" to "Hallel" by Various

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Related Words

• chutzpah
• gall
• guts
• spunk

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