Audacity

How to spell audacity

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce audacity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does audacity mean?

1. nounRude or disrespectful boldness; shameless nerve in saying or doing something.
2. nounFearless boldness or willingness to take risks, often admired.

Audacity in a sentence

• He had the audacity to ask for a refund after wrecking the rental car.

• The architect's audacity produced a glass tower unlike anything in the city.

• The tenant complained about the noise, then had the audacity to play loud music all night.

• Investors praised the audacity of her decision to abandon the safe plan.

Where does audacity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Audacity comes from the Latin audacia, meaning 'boldness' or 'daring', which was built on the adjective audax 'bold', itself derived from the verb audere 'to dare' or 'to be willing'. The word travelled into English in the fifteenth century by way of Old French audacite, carrying both an admiring sense of fearless courage and a sharper sense of brazen nerve. From the very beginning it could swing between praise and reproach, which is why we still admire someone's audacity in one breath and condemn it in the next. The same audere root lies behind the rarer word 'audacious', and recognising that 'aud' stem helps explain why the middle is spelled with a single 'd' and the tricky soft 'c', not an 's'.

How the word is built

• audac- (from Latin audax, audacis: bold, daring)
• -ity (noun suffix forming a quality)