temerity

temerity, audacity, hardihood, effrontery, nerve, cheek, gall are comparable when they mean conspicuous or flagrant boldness (as in speech, behavior, or action). Temerity usually implies contempt of danger and consequent rashness; often it suggests, especially when a proposal or project is under discussion, a failure to estimate one's chances of success

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impetuously brushed aside the legalistic twaddle of the lawyers . . . and they frowned on such temerity— Bowers

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tenth-rate critics and compilers, for whom any violent shock to the public taste would be a temerity not to be risked— Arnold

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Audacity implies either a bold and open disregard of the restraints imposed by prudence, convention, decorum, or authority or undue presumption in making advances

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he had committed the supreme audacity of looking into her soul— Sackville-West

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the moral audacity, the sense of spiritual freedom, that one gets froi.i certain scenes in the Gospels— Edmund Wilson

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Hardihood stresses firmness of purpose and often additionally implies considered defiance (as of conventions or decorum). It may be used without depreciative intent, but it is frequently employed as a term of contempt almost equivalent to insolence or impudence

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no historian or astronomer will have the hardihood to maintain that he commands this God's-eye view— Toynbee

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the reviewers . . . were staggered by my hardihood in offering a woman of forty as a subject of serious interest to the public— Bennett

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Effrontery is definitely derogatory; it is used in place of any of the three preceding words when one wishes to impute flagrant disregard of the laws of courtesy, propriety, or fair dealing or an arrogant assumption of a privilege

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had the damnable effrontery to tell me my father's delay was occasioned . . . by his addiction to immoral practices— Cheever

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she had won her way to success by strength of will and hardness of heart, and a kind of haughty effrontery— Wharton

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Nerve, cheek, and gall are close to effrontery, nerve, however, often carrying a strong suggestion of hardihood, cheek of impudent self-assurance, and gall of outrageous insolence

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had the ghastly nerve to tell you . . . that you were being vulgar— Wouk

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the cheek of him . . . imagine a miserable-looking leprechaun like Pat Dolan to be having notions of a fine girl like Maria— Laverty

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the small stockholder who . . . has the gall to ask questions about the management— Cohn

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Analogous words: rashness, recklessness, foolhardiness, daring, ven- turesomeness (see corresponding adjectives at ADVENTUROUS): precipitateness, impetuosity, abruptness (see corresponding adjectives at PRECIPITATE): impertinence, intrusiveness, officiousness (see corresponding adjectives at IMPERTINENT)

Antonyms: caution