more searches
44 wordies list

temerity

 (n): fearless daring
( more... )
noun
[add tags/pos | image search | comment feed ]
all tags for this word (hide)
Leave a comment, citation, or usage note
4 months 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.

Register or login to leave a comment.
first listed by:
pedalinfaith (615 words)
appears in these lists:
Words to Try to Use in Colloquial Speech Without Sounding Like a Pretentious Ass, by pedalinfaith
thricedotted's Words, by thricedotted
relevance's Words, by relevance
eekspaceship's Words, by eekspaceship
kirstenio's Words, by kirstenio
Logophile, Page V, by vega
stpeter's Words, by stpeter
merfee's Words, by merfee
the love list, by chartreuse
riverfish's Words, by riverfish
andrew.simone's Words, by andrew.simone
mandarine's Words, by mandarine
-ity City, by Papageno
inkhorn's Words, by inkhorn
amagnano's Words, by amagnano
jaradgiese's Words, by jaradgiese
colorful pretentiousness!, by adrift
nfrank's Words, by nfrank
new words!, by kmalladi
Valse's Words, by Valse
midnightisclose's Words, by midnightisclose
pinkmerengue's Words, by pinkmerengue
Worse Than They Sound, by reesetee
The Gall, by Sabrina
the foreign & exotic, by ryuusei
ricetraitor's Words, by ricetraitor
the nerve!, by trivet
cloudjuice's Words, by cloudjuice
figerrific's Words, by figerrific
Learned, by MATprep
SAT Words 4, by jubea
vocab, by jaltcoh
Tuesday words, by slumry
Words to learn, by kjohn493
abiohphobia's Words, by abiohphobia
calaggie's words, by calaggie
jaden's Words, by jaden
The Sog Collection, by SonofGroucho
danallison's Words, by danallison
Dictionary, by jaymediane
James Cridland's list of words he quite likes, by jamescridland
mbmontague's list, by mbmontague
descriptive, by myriasofo
For Faulkner Lovers , by Tolland
Tolland's list, by Tolland