audacious

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French audacieux,^[2][3][4][5] from audace (“boldness”),^[2][3][4] from Latin audācia (“daring, boldness, courage”),^[2][3][5] from audāx (“bold, daring”),^[2][3][6] from audeō (“to dare”).^[2][3][6][7] The OED instead forms it from the stem of the Latin adjective with the suffix -acious, and compares the French word, which Cotgrave records in 1611;^[8] the Oxford Dictionary of English likewise derives it from the Latin adjective with -ious.^[9] Etymonline notes that the Latin adjective was used more often in a bad sense, "rash, foolhardy".^[2] According to de Vaan, as cited by Etymonline, the verb is derived from avidus (“greedy”),^[2] and the American Heritage Dictionary and Weekley derive it in the same way;^[3][10] Klein explains it as a verb meaning "to be eager", from avidus, a derivative of aveō (“to wish, long for”), and thinks the sense "to dare" arose in the negative, where "not to wish to do" came to mean "not to dare to do".^[5] The word is thus related to avid and avarice.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Daring, bold, confident, intrepid: 1550, in Thomas Nicolls's translation of Thucydides.^[8][4] Etymonline dates it to the 1540s,^[2] and Dictionary.com to 1540–50.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word began in a good or neutral sense, "bold, confident, daring",^[8][12] and the bad sense "shameless, unrestrained by propriety" followed in the 1590s, in Etymonline's dating;^[2] the OED's first record of it, "presumptuously wicked, impudent", is from William Warner's Albions England (1586).^[8] From 1616, in Ben Jonson, the word was applied to things as well as people,^[8] and John Fletcher used it once for "inspiring boldness".^[8] Johnson (1755) defined it as "bold; impudent; daring" and added "always in a bad sense", quoting Shakespeare and Dryden.^[13] Today it has both sides: "willing to take surprisingly bold risks" and "impudent, lacking respect".^[12][14] In the dialects of the English Midlands and the South (Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, East Anglia, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset), the forms oudacious, owdacious and outdacious meant impudent, shameless or incorrigible, and of things very bad; the word was also used there as an intensive adverb, "exceedingly, very".^[15] Merriam-Webster Unabridged records this English dialect sense, "extremely", from about 1898.^[4]

Timeline

• 1550 – daring, bold, confident.^[8][4]
• 1586 – impudent, shameless, defying decorum and morality.^[8] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1590s.^[2]
• 1616 – of things, bold, daring.^[8]
• before 1625 – inspiring boldness (obsolete).^[8]
• c. 1898 – in English dialect, as an intensive: extremely, very.^[4][15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Showing fearless, spirited daring; willing to take bold risks: an audacious plan to cross the desert on foot.^[14][4][8]
2. Recklessly bold; rash.^[14][4]
3. Impudent or presumptuous; disregarding what is proper or respectful: an audacious reply to the headmaster.^[14][4][8]

Word family

• audaciously
• audaciousness
• unaudacious

Related words

• audacity
• avid
• avarice

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)