audacious
[aw-dey-shuh s]
- extremely bold or daring; recklessly brave; fearless: an audacious explorer.
- extremely original; without restriction to prior ideas; highly inventive: an audacious vision of the city's bright future.
- recklessly bold in defiance of convention, propriety, law, or the like; insolent; brazen.
- lively; unrestrained; uninhibited: an audacious interpretation of her role.
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Origin of audacious
Synonyms
See more synonyms for audacious on Thesaurus.com1. courageous, intrepid, dauntless, venturesome. 3. unabashed, shameless; impertinent, forward.
Antonyms
1. cowardly.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for audacious
Contemporary Examples
If true, however, this would be bribery at its most audacious—and creative.
Record numbers of Scottish voters shot down an audacious bid to break their 300-year union with the United Kingdom.
It was audacious and global in scope, yet annoying for being unavoidable.
The change, so audacious, so unorthodox, disconcerted the Costa Ricans.
Variety taps Depardieu's "audacious performance [as] undeniably the pic's chief selling point."
Historical Examples
There was no audacious bobcat around to worry them that night.
With Trapper Jim in the North WoodsLawrence J. Leslie
She was an audacious woman, and openly looked compassionately at me.
Little DorritCharles Dickens
It was audacious in me, but I took another liberty with Pangloss.
The Uncommercial TravellerCharles Dickens
Alice glanced at his serious face, and yielded to an audacious temptation.
Alice AdamsBooth Tarkington
Audacious as I was, I did not care to inquire in what room I should find them.
The Room in the Dragon VolantJ. Sheridan LeFanu
audacious
- recklessly bold or daring; fearless
- impudent or presumptuous
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Word Origin
C16: from Latin audāx bold, from audēre to dare
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for audacious
adj.
1540s, "confident, intrepid," from Middle French audacieux, from audace "boldness," from Latin audacia "daring, boldness, courage," from audax "brave, bold, daring," but more often "bold" in a bad sense, "audacious, rash, foolhardy," from audere "to dare, be bold." Bad sense of "shameless" is attested from 1590s in English. Related: Audaciously.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper