Sunday, April 25, 2010

Temerity, n.

I'm certainly inspired after learning that my readership is now at least three times bigger than I had originally imagined it.

Here's an excellent noun plucked straight from Latin. It means foolish boldness, or rashness. You could consider it a close synonym to "recklessness", although that word lacks the connotation of intended courage that "temerity" connotes.

Hence, it would be recklessness to attempt to rob Fort Knox, but temerity to attempt to do it if the CIA had locked your family in there.

The etymology is simple. The Latin "temeritās" means both randomness and chance, as meaning almost exactly what the English word means.

Would it be temerity to attempt to use this word three times tomorrow? You'd might as well try!

1 comment:

  1. I always liked this one. It's on the moderately difficult word list for the GRE: I'm guessing because it suggests its better-known antonym, timidity.

    ReplyDelete