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temerity

 (n): fearless daring
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noun
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about 1 year ago jaymediane said:

Temerity n. excessive confidence or boldness; audacity.

Implies exposing oneself needlessly to danger while failing to estimate one's chances of success.

ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin temeritas, from temere ‘rashly.’

He didn't know that in some places, like the country that Rahel came form, various kinds of despair competed for primacy. And that personal despair could never be desperate enough. That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot wind, and demanded obeisance. Then Small God (cozy and contained, private and limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity" (Roy 20)


Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

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