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

Etymology

Origin of audacity

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

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

Through her audacity and fierce self-belief, Osterberg was a prime mover in rewriting the playbook for women in British sport.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

This was shockingly unbookish behavior made worse by flabbergasting audacity.

From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2026

"Some people have had the audacity to ask if it was a cross!" he later told BBC Radio 5 live.

From BBC ● May 15, 2026

Mr. Armitage’s resplendent translation, proceeding with nerve, wisdom and necessary audacity, proves that literature does not progress so much as deepen, circling the same obsessions with ever-renewed urgency.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026

His forwardness and audacity often caught them off guard.

From "Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya

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

In short, without Cassavetes both New Hollywood and the recent outpouring of zero-budget independent audacities would be unimaginable.

From The New Yorker ● Jul. 15, 2016

Lawrence, reserved, incorrigible, skulks about England, trying to decide whether or not to give the world his 120,000-word Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the staggering chronicle of his secret audacities and triumphs.

From Time Magazine Archive

It would even be easy for them to surpass them, without endangering the solidity of the structure, as did the audacities of Gothic art.

From The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries by Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)

Related Words

• chutzpah
• gall
• guts
• spunk