temerity

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English temerite,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin temeritās (“blind chance, accident; rashness”),^[4][5][6][7] and partly also borrowed from Old French temerité, recorded in the 14th century.^[5][2][3] The OED and Barnhart both note the French témérité beside it.^[4][6] The Latin noun is from temere (“by chance, blindly, rashly”),^[4][5][6][8] which, according to Ayto and Klein, first meant "in the dark".^[9][8][10] Ayto derives it from an unrecorded Latin *temus (“darkness”), a relative of tenebrae (“darkness”);^[9] Etymonline and Barnhart trace it to Proto-Indo-European *temos- (“darkness”),^[5] which Barnhart writes *temes-, from a root *tem- (“dark”);^[6] it is the source also of Old Irish temel (“darkness”), Lithuanian tamsà (“darkness”), Old High German dinstar (“dark”) and Tocharian B tamāṣṣe (“dark, gloomy”).^{[5][6][8][11]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Excessive boldness, rashness: in an anonymous English translation of Higden's Polychronicon made about 1425 and preserved in a manuscript of before 1475: "yowthe in temeryte".^[4][2] Barnhart dates the word to before 1387, in Trevisa's translation of the same work,^[12][6] and Etymonline to the early 15th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word meant blind chance as well as rashness;^[5][6] Etymonline sees the link in acting "blindly, in darkness", that is without foreseeing the consequences.^[5] English took the sense of rashness, and the sense "chance, accident" appears only once, in Cudworth (1678).^[4][13] From before 1677 it could also mean a single rash act.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "rashness; unreasonable contempt of danger".^[14] In modern use it often means presumptuous boldness, as in to have the temerity to do something.^[11][13]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – excessive boldness, rashness, recklessness.^[4][2]
• before 1677 – an act of rashness.^[4]
• 1678 – chance, accident (obsolete).^[4][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. Reckless or presumptuous boldness; audacity: Nobody else had the temerity to question the director's plan.^[11][15][13]
2. Rashness or foolhardiness in the face of danger.^[11][4][14]
3. A rash act.^[4][13]

Related words

• temerarious
• tenebrous

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b 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 j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins