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

“Call it megalomania, genius, madness, audacity, irresponsibility, whatever you want,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico who once tangled with Castro.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026

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

They read midlife modesty, not stoke; they’re lacking in the joyous, playful audacity that Kasparian and her team infused into their groundbreaking designs.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026

His immense self-confidence—the audacity that had allowed him to invent a wholly new style of painting—was gone.

From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day

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

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

It is full of the audacities, the inconsistencies, the imperfections, the possibilities of youth.

From A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition by Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

Related Words

• chutzpah
• gall
• guts
• spunk