Word Finder - audacity

definition

Insolent boldness, especially when imprudent or unconventional.

example

Somebody never pays his loans, yet he has the audacity to ask the bank for money.

definition

Fearlessness, intrepidity or daring, especially with confident disregard for personal safety, conventional thought, or other restrictions.

I can't believe she had the audacity to ask me to do her work for her.

Amanda had the audacity to show up to the party, despite the fact that she was not invited.

It required some audacity for a young child to jump from the high dive.

Isaiah had the audacity to talk back to his mother, making her upset with him.

The audacity of the student tended to cause her to get in trouble.

The first responders have audacity, making them well-suited to deal with emergency situations.

A fortnight later Charles quitted Warsaw, to seek the elector; on the 2nd of July routed the combined Poles and Saxons at Klissow; and three weeks later, captured the fortress of Cracow by an act of almost fabulous audacity.

His 200 sermons are a mine of learning and experience, and they stand out from all others by their imaginative power, originality of view, variety of treatment and audacity of expression.

Many reformers, like Glapion, the Franciscan confessor of Charles V., who had read the Address with equanimity if not approval, were shocked by Luther's audacity in rejecting the prevailing fundamental religious conceptions.

There is more audacity about the Arena than its older rivals.

Down with your clothes. ' ' Never again, ' I shouted, marveling at my own audacity.

It was spurred into renewed activity by the audacity of Sir John Hawkins in the West Indies, and by the appearance of Drake, Cavendish and Richard Hawkins in the Pacific.

Machiavelli conceived the strongest admiration for Cesare's combination of audacity with diplomatic prudence, for his adroit use of cruelty and fraud, for his self-reliance, avoidance of half-measures, employment of native troops, and firm administration in conquered provinces.

Because of their audacity against him, Uranus called all his sons "Titans" which means "straining gods."

A new version of the free audio editor audacity has been announced.

I was amazed at the terrorists ' audacity, and America's vulnerability.

There is at least one biological speculation of astounding audacity, that could be examined in nothing less than a treatise.

His character, like his thought, lacked audacity and sweep, without which revolutionary politics is impossible.

The sheer audacity of Dave Williams, lead keyboard vocalist, was nothing less than stunningly original.

The old theater publicists ' tricks have a breathtaking audacity that I would love to document.

The Bolshevik party has shown in action a combination of the highest revolutionary audacity and political realism.

He then had the audacity to claim he's not fixated by speeding!

We hear little of the island under the Empire, except as a granary and as remarkable for its unhealthiness and the audacity of its brigands.

He represented Cambridge in the Short and Long Parliaments of 1640, and at once showed extraordinary zeal and audacity in his opposition to the government, taking a large share in business and serving on numerous and important committees.

Abandoning the ancient Muscovite capital, where many influential personages were fanatically hostile to his innovations and not a few of the superstitious inhabitants regarded him with horror as Antichrist, he built at the mouth of the Neva a new capital which was to serve as " a window through which his people might look into Europe "; and laying aside the national St title of tsar he proclaimed himself (1711) emperor Peters- (Imperator) of all Russia - much to the surprise and indignation of foreign diplomatic chancelleries, which resented the audacity of a semi-barbarous potentate in claiming to be equal in rank with the head of the Holy Roman Empire.

The sultan, who had risen from a Mongolian slave to become a second Saladin, and who combined the physique and audacity of a Danton with the tenacity and religiosity of a Philip II., dealt blow after blow to the Franks of the East.

This prince pushed his audacity so far as to attack his father's troops, but the action merely increased his popularity with the Janissaries, and Bayezid, after a reign of thirtyone years, was obliged to abdicate in favour of his forceful younger son; a few days later he died.

This project, which lacked neither ability nor audacity, foundered upon Louis XV.'s invincible jealousy of the growth of Russian influence in eastern Europe and his fear of offending the Porte.

When Marie had recovered breath from such audacity she proceeded to attack him in the strongest terms, declaring that the king must choose between him or her.

This famous work, which the author has the audacity to place on the same level with the histories of William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, professes to be a translation from a Celtic source; "a very old book in the British tongue" which Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, had brought from Brittany.

On the death of George, Casimir's eldest son Wladislaus was elected king of Bohemia by the Utraquist party, despite the determined opposition of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, whose ability and audacity henceforth made him Casimir's most dangerous rival.

Gertz, himself a man of uncommon audacity, seems to have been fascinated by the heroic element in Charles's nature and was determined, if possible, to save him from his difficulties.

His real name was Michele Pezza, and he was born of low parentage at Itri; he had committed many murders and robberies in the Terra di Lavoro, but by good luck combined with audacity he always escaped capture, whence his name of Fra Diavolo, popular superstition having invested him with the characters of a monk and a demon, and it seems that at one time he actually was a monk.

Although his cruelty was abominable, he was not altogether without generosity, and by his courage and audacity he acquired a certain romantic popularity.

The government of Sir John Macdonald felt, however, that the future of the Dominion depended upon linking together the Atlantic and the Pacific, and in view of the vast unoccupied spaces lying between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, open to immigration from the United States, their audacity in undertaking the work was doubtless justified.

Henry never forgave the audacity; but, for the moment, the only revenge he could take was upon More's father, whom upon some pretext he threw into the Tower, and he only released him upon payment of a fine of £ioo.

A signal instance of the audacity of the American cruisers was the capture of the U.S. sloop "Argus" (20) by the British sloop "Pelican" (18) so far from home as St David's Head in Wales on the 14th of August 1813.

When Burghley brought against her the unanswerable charge of having at that moment in her service, and in receipt of an annual pension, the instigator of a previous attempt on the life of Elizabeth, she had the unwary audacity to cite in her justification the pensions allowed by Elizabeth to her adversaries in Scotland, and especially to her son.

The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gate of Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a circle of lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendancy.

With little or none of Robert Guiscard's personal valour, and living at intervals the life of an eastern Sultan, he yet showed to the full his uncle's audacity, diplomatic skill and determination.

Without entering into any examination of the charges brought before them, the synod condemned him on the ground of contumacy, and, hinting that his audacity merited the punishment of treason, called on the emperor to ratify and enforce their decision.

York was scandalized at its clergyman's indecency, and indignant at his caricature as "Slop" of a local physician (Dr John Burton); London was charmed with his audacity, wit and graphic unconventional power.

In the delineation of character by graphically significant speech and action, introduced at unexpected turns, left with happy audacity to point their own meaning, and pointing it with a force that the dullest cannot but understand, he takes rank with the very greatest masters.

A similar judgment may be passed upon those Paulician, Albigensian, Paterine and Epicurean dissenters from the Catholic creed who opposed the phalanxes of orthodoxy with frail imaginative weapons, and alarmed established orders in the state by the audacity of their communistic opinions.

The distinguishing characteristics of French humanism are vivid intelligence, critical audacity and polemical acumen, perspicuity of exposition, learning directed in its applications by logical sense rather than by artistic ideals of taste.

But, while the necessities of antagonism to papal Rome made it assume at first the form of narrow and sectarian opposition, it marked in fact a vital struggle of the intellect towards truth and freedom, involving future results of scepticism and rationalistic audacity from which its earlier champions would have shrunk.

The former may profit by the study of his marvellous lucidity and vehemence, the latter by his sublime audacity in exaggeration and the sophistry with which he involves the innocent halfpence in the obloquy of the nefarious patentee.

St John, now Viscount Bolingbcoke, with unscrupulous audacity placed himself at their head.

Les Burgraves, a tragic poem of transcendent beauty in execution and imaginative audacity in conception, found so little favour on the stage that the author refused to submit his subsequent plays to the verdict of a public audience.

A motion to outlaw him was only baffled by the audacity of the president, his brother Lucien.