Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Audacity   Listen
noun
Audacity  n.  
1.
Daring spirit, resolution, or confidence; venturesomeness. "The freedom and audacity necessary in the commerce of men."
2.
Reckless daring; presumptuous impudence; implying a contempt of law or moral restraints. "With the most arrogant audacity."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Audacity" Quotes from Famous Books



... with increased audacity, their ravenous instincts but strengthened by the check. The enemy late dreaded has not molested them, but gone off, leaving their prey unprotected. They are again free to assail, and this time ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... grew red, they both talked at once without listening to each other. Bournisien was scandalized at such audacity; Homais marvelled at such stupidity; and they were on the point of insulting one another when Charles suddenly reappeared. A fascination drew him. He was ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... Attila. atrs adv. behind, backward. atravesar pass through, cross. atrevido, -a bold, daring. atronador, -a thundering. atropellar trample under foot, strike down; —se hasten, crowd. audacia f. audacity. audaz adj. bold, fearless. aullar howl. aullido m. howl, cry of horror. aumentar increase, enlarge, magnify. an, aun adv. yet, still, even, nevertheless. aunque conj. although. aura f. breeze, zephyr. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... Army, carrying audacity to temerity, had continued its endeavor to envelop our left, had crossed the Grand Morin, and reached the region of Chauffry, to the south of Rebaix and of Esternay. It aimed then at cutting our armies off from Paris, in order to begin ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... was glad to get away. The ball was wretchedly stupid; and, after that disagreeable Lady Vivian irritated me by talking of you, I could not stay. She seemed to have the audacity to expect that you would become her humble companion. You! our noble, doubly noble Madeleine, the humble companion of any one, but especially of such a coarse person as Lady Vivian! ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... snatch it for ourselves; and the republic will be all the stronger to resist, if the kings of Europe should band themselves together to reduce it." I know not which of the two I should admire the more: the simplicity of the multitude or the audacity of the adventurer. But such are the subtleties, such the quibbling reasons, with which he blinds and leads this people. How long a course so tortuous can be pursued with safety I am incapable of guessing; not long, one would suppose; and yet this singular man has been treading the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ground these brutal buffooneries had been assigned to their unmistakable author; in other words, to acknowledge his ignorance of the first elements of the subject on which it pleased him to write in a tone of critical and spiritual authority. Not even when his unwary and unscrupulous audacity of self-confidence impelled Charles Kingsley to challenge John Henry Newman to the duel of which the upshot left him gasping so piteously on the ground selected for their tournament—not even then did the author ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent, under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross; these and other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect which would have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of Greeks and the most potent of Romans. The achievements of modern science settle forever the question as to the advance of society ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... Conde de Onis did not open his lips. He stood in the third or fourth row, following with eager eyes all the attention and care bestowed upon the infant. But when he was about to depart without again taking leave, Amalia stopped him with an audacity which ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... Government Tribunal of these Islands for His Catholic Majesty:—Whereas the Royal Government Tribunal, Supreme Government and Captain-Generalship of His Catholic Majesty in these Islands are gravely offended at the audacity and blindness of those men, who, forgetting all humanity, have condemned as rebellious and disobedient to both their Majesties, him, who as a faithful vassal of His Catholic Majesty, and in conformity ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... have seen him then, as he waited, it would hardly have recognized its "card," its character, its mirror of aplomb and inventive audacity, in this figure of ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... Courage. — N. courage, bravery, valor; resoluteness, boldness &c. adj.; spirit, daring, gallantry, intrepidity; contempt of danger, defiance of danger; derring-do; audacity; rashness &c. 863; dash; defiance &c. 715; confidence, self-reliance. manliness, manhood; nerve, pluck, mettle, game; heart, heart of grace; spunk, , guts, face, virtue, hardihood, fortitude, intestinal fortitude; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the pride of the English, who extend their piracy even against their friends, and who insulting the forts of Norway, violate the rights of the harbours of King Frederick; but, for the reward of their audacity, see their vessels destroyed by the balls of the Dutch" (Hawkins's "Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain and Ireland," ed. Franks and Grueber, 1885, vol. i., p. 508). Sir Gilbert Talbot's "True Narrative ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... Parliament; but he is not a man to figure well there, with his impetuosity and lack of self-control. He can talk by the hour to those who feel with him; but to be challenged, to have his fierce invective submitted to the severe test of an inexorable logic,—this limits his audacity; and his audacity once limited, his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... such high privilege from English kings. However, if a dramatist had been bold enough to put such a favourite on the stage, he would have met with the most severe punishment long before Jonson had pointed out his reprehensible audacity. By the 'happiest monarchs,' Henry III. and Henry IV. of France are meant. The latter, at that time, yet stood in the zenith of his good fortune. Again, the expression: 'of every vernaculous orator,' points to the circumstance of the mockery being directed against a foreigner; ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... away, while John and his companion returned to their work. The Roman officer was absolutely incredulous, as to the story he had heard; and indignant in the extreme at what he considered the audacity of the falsehood. Still, he could not but be struck by the calmness with which John told the story, nor could he see what motive he could have in inventing it. Its falsity would, of course, be made apparent the instant he arrived in ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... certain, but it was evident that the diversion had been tried on several occasions and Peggy's heart almost stood still, realizing the peril to which the children had exposed themselves. Without doubt their immunity was due to their very audacity. Apparently the boar had not connected these fearless mites with human beings whom he knew to be vulnerable, but had fancied them sportive elves, against whom his tusks would be powerless. Peggy registered ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... time that the estafette made this sudden appearance, almost in cuerpo, the audacity of the robbers had risen to an unparalleled height. They had their spies and emissaries in every town, village, and osteria, to give them notice of the quality and movements of travellers. They did not scruple to send messages into the country towns and ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... sallied out upon the vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at the point of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they have received at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed; yet, even at the present day, we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged. With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... overnight, and fashions, especially since the war, changed so quickly and yet so subtly that he might be another year readjusting himself on his return. Or find himself supplanted by some man younger than himself whose cursed audacity and dramatized youthfulness would have accustomed the facile public to some new brand of pap flavored with red pepper. The world was marching to the tune of youth, damn it (Mr. Clavering was beginning to feel elderly at thirty-four), but it was hard to shake out the entrenched. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... forward, clenched his two fists, squared, and blustered with great demonstrativeness. He was much Walter's senior, and was utterly taken by surprise at his audacity; but he seemed in no hurry to ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... was astounded by this bold proposition, but the very audacity of it caught his fancy. He struck the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... in a voice before which Norbert, at one time, would have quailed. "Whence comes the audacity that makes you ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... time would have attracted attention anywhere. The crisp air had given her a fine color. Her eyes glowed with suppressed excitement and anger, while the firm lines about the mouth indicated that when she spoke it would be decidedly. In spite of herself the audacity, cleverness, and wickedness of this stranger had affected her greatly. As he threw off his moodiness, as he revealed himself by word and action, she saw that he was no ordinary character, but a thorough man of the world, and with some strange caprices. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... small, delicate face. There were points of light in her dark irises, giving them the look of black quartz in the sunshine. She was not tall, but her figure was perfect, and she had her dresses fitted immediately to it. Her appeal was frankly to the senses, the edge taken from its audacity by its artistic effectiveness and by her ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... unfortunate and fatal decisions the vicious and mischievous doctrine of States' Rights, called by some State sovereignty, by others local self government, which was believed to have perished upon the battlefields of the country, was given new life, strength and audacity, and fostered by the preaching of the fear of "Negro domination." The decision declaring the Civil Rights Law unconstitutional was rendered by Mr. Justice Bradley, and nearly all of those by which the principal sections of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... Fortune and audacity united (as they always do) to concede his desire. He was in the beautiful department store of Beagle and Company, one of the most splendid of its kind, looking at some sand-coloured spats. In an aisle near by he heard ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... that direction, observed a canoe lying on the beach. This he secured. The men belonging to it, however, contrived to make their escape in another canoe, but left behind them two of their hats. The prisoner had the audacity to venture on board the steam-vessel, in hopes of recovering the lost canoe; he was immediately attempted to be seized, but he contrived, in consequence of his greasy skin, to give our men the slip, and effect his escape. ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... the following year seem to show that with audacity he might have at least inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. For in 1626 the directors, ignorant of his failure, sent out a reinforcement of nine ships and five yachts under the command of the redoubtable Piet Hein. Hein sailed on May 21 for the West Indies, where ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... in confusion and astonishment at the audacity of the act. Some of the braves may have suspected that I had had a hand in the business, for I observed that they cast angry glances at me as they passed. So great was their excitement, too, that for the moment they had forgotten ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston

... more provoking. In a few sharp words I told him, through the interpreter, what I thought of the lodging provided for me, and that nothing should induce me to live in such a slum. To which, with cool, deliberate audacity, he replied that nothing prevented me from living where I was. I started from the low seat I had taken (in order to converse with him at my ease, he sitting on the floor), and not without difficulty found voice to say that neither his palace nor the den in the fish-market would suit ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... as with audacity (no doubt characteristic, though not before evidenced to me), he seated himself complacently and uninvited, and, disposing of his hat and stick, settled himself down for a tete-a-tete, an affair which, if medical, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... active kind. They will stay, endure, resist, and follow, but they have not the restless, aggressive spirit. I do not believe they will desert their officers in trying moments, in so great numbers as the whites; they have not the will, audacity or fertility of excuse of the straggling white, and at the same time they have not the heroic, nervous energy, or vivid perception of the white, who stands firm ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... deeming Krishna unassailable when seated on his car drawn by Sugriva and other steeds, left the chief of the Chedis and ran away like small animals at the sight of a lion. And it was thus that he, who, from audacity had sought to oppose and encounter Krishna in a combat hand to hand, was slain by Krishna and lay down lifeless, resembling a Karnikara tree uprooted by a gale. O Sanjaya, O son of Gavalgana, what they have told me of the activity of Krishna in cause of Pandu's sons, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... back, Dizzy Fox. He had already discredited the touchdown scored on a trumped up play, despite its perfect execution. In fact, every way you looked at it, this fellow Mack Carver appeared as a complete wash-out. He even marvelled now that he had had the audacity to visit Coach Edward and ask why he wasn't a regular on the Varsity. How foolish of him to have imagined that the Coach was holding his relationship to Carl Carver against him! He really ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... and, rubbing his eyes, somewhat noticeably in the manner of one who has snatched an hour of much needed sleep, took his place as if nothing in particular had happened. This, at first supposed to be a superhuman exhibition of sheer audacity, became but the more dumfounding when Miss Spence—looking up from her desk—greeted him with a pleasant little nod. Even after school, Penrod gave numerous maddened investigators no relief. All he would ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... the Puritans to be allowed occasionally to substitute extemporaneous for liturgical devotions. "The gift or rather spirit of prayer consists in the inward graces of the spirit, not in extempore expressions which any man of natural parts having a voluble tongue and audacity may attain to without any special gift." Nothing very conciliatory in that. To the complaint that the Collects are too short, the bishops reply that they cannot for that reason be accounted faulty, being like those "short but prevalent prayers in Scripture, Lord, be merciful to me ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... trade so royally witnessed on the wharf and river. And what was of still greater consequence to the merchant, it would be to forego his career in the midst of amazing success, and yield himself voluntarily once more a slave. Simple thought of the demand seemed a monstrous audacity. Stripped of diplomatic address, it was to say, You are my slave; give me all you ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... in the meanwhile advanced towards the Kashmir gate and halted. Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, with eight Sappers and Miners and a bugler of the 52nd Foot, went forward to blow the gate open. The enemy were apparently so astounded at the audacity of this proceeding that for a minute or two they offered but slight resistance. They soon, however, discovered how small the party was and the object for which it had come, and forthwith opened a deadly fire upon the gallant little band from ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... success. I may as well confess that one of the ballets in Henry VIII came from the finale of an opera-comique in one act. This work was finished and ready to go to rehearsal when the whole thing was stopped because I had the audacity to assert to Nestor Roqueplan, the director of Favart Hall, that Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... as they smiled, "is a worthy senior; while our father is, on the other hand, only her nephew; so that on a birthday of a man of his age, we should really not have had the audacity to invite her ladyship; but as the weather, at this time, is cool, and the chrysanthemums, in the whole garden, are in luxuriant blossom, we have requested our venerable ancestor to come for a little distraction, and to see ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... proclaimed sultan in Sockatoo; from the mere circumstance of his brother Bello, the present sultan, having expressed the intention, during his father's lifetime, of resigning the splendour of royalty for the tranquillity of a holy and learned life. Ateeko had even the audacity to enter his brother's house, preceded by drums and trumpets; and when Bello inquired the cause of the tumult, he received the first intimation of his brother's perfidy in the answer, "The sultan ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... knocked together, an exclamation for mercy burst from his lips; but when, recovering the mere shock of his dastard nerves, he perceived it was not the gripe of some hireling of the law, but a father's hand that had clutched his arm, the vile audacity which knows fear only from a bodily cause, none from the awe of shame, returned ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... could hardly be defended on purely dramatic grounds; and still later, occupying some hundred and twenty lines of the very last scene, we have the chatter of Osric with Hamlet's mockery of it. But the acme of audacity is reached in Antony and Cleopatra, where, quite close to the end, the old countryman who brings the asps to Cleopatra discourses on the virtues and vices of the worm, and where his last words, 'Yes, forsooth: I wish you joy ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... Harlowe, recovering his audacity somewhat. "Spite of all your hectoring and abuse, I defy you to obtain proof—legal proof—whether what Edith has heard is true or false. The affair may perhaps be arranged; ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... inner feelings like that, by outward signs, the count must be very angry. He was. He had seen his brother return from a rapid and mysterious journey in an alarming state of health. The explanation that followed was unsatisfactory and the count asked Christine Daae for an appointment. She had the audacity to reply that she could not see either him ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux

... give us the feeble pictures and the lumpy statues of the mere artisans on canvas or in stone. A true artist, therefore, can hardly fail to have a sharp, well-defined character. Besides this, many young girls have a strange audacity blended with their instinctive delicacy. Even in physical daring many of them are a match for boys; whereas you will find few among mature women, and especially if they are mothers, who do not confess, and not unfrequently proclaim, their timidity. One of these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... employed as color-grinder. He studied painting secretly, and at last, on an occasion when the king visited the studio of his master, Pareja showed him a picture of his own painting, and throwing himself at Philip's feet begged pardon for his audacity. Both Philip and Velasquez treated him very kindly. Velasquez gave Pareja his freedom; but it is said that he continued to serve his old master faithfully as long as he lived. Pareja succeeded best as a portrait painter. His works are not numerous, ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement

... these ideas would not have been probable in times when the ignorance of men rendered so many women intractable, but, in these times when the audacity of our assailants leaves us so few resources, in these times, I say, when, since the invention of powder, there are few impregnable places, why undertake a prolonged formal siege, when it is certain that after much labor ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... himself into the school, he would have liked to watch her there, and see if there was not some understanding between her and the master which betrayed itself by look or word. But this was beyond the limits of his audacity, and he had to content himself with such cautious observations as could be made at a distance. With the aid of a pocket-glass he could make out persons without the risk ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... pronunciation, and to the consternation of his employer, "turned Sir Edward from the door," and gladly admitted the petty versifier Parkerson who sold his sheets to the highest bidder in the streets; worse even than this was his audacity in contending against a wealthy archdeacon that Ab Gwilym was the superior of Ovid. This gentleman was probably the Rev. John Oldershaw, Archdeacon of Norfolk from 1797 till his death, January 31st, 1847, aged ninety-three. As he was one of the most active magistrates in the county, he would ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... was left alone in the now darkened room, lighted only by one lamp and the bright glow of the fire. She caught her breath—suddenly struck with the audacity of what she had been doing. Eight or ten of these people certainly would come in—eight or ten of Lady Henry's "intimates." If Lady Henry discovered it—after this precarious truce between them had just been ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Louisville Railway Company v. Mississippi,[31] however, in 1899, the court, evidently yielding to southern public opinion, reversed itself by the decision that an interstate carrier could not run a train through Mississippi without attaching thereto a separate car for Negroes and had the audacity to argue that this is not an interference with interstate commerce.[32] To show how inconsistent this interpretation was one should bear in mind that in Hall v. DeCuir the court had held that this was ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... formation by their officers. Breaking down brush and barbed wire and sheltering themselves in the high grass, the men on the right wing worked their way up Kettle Hill, but before they reached the rifle pits of the enemy, they saw the Spaniards retreating on the run. The audacity of the Americans at the critical moment had insured the ultimate success of their attack and they found the final capture of the ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... bill to its passage with furious energy. He set upon Chase savagely, charging him with bad faith in that he had gained time, by a false pretense of ignorance of the bill, to flood the country with slanderous attacks upon it and upon its author. The audacity of the announcement that the Compromise of 1850 repealed the Compromise of 1820 was well-nigh justified by the skill of his contention. It was a principle, he maintained, and no mere temporary expedient, for which ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... country, sparsely settled, and frequently overrun by the barbarous enemy, was incapable of that patient industry and persevering care, which could chronicle the passing event, give place and date to the brilliant sortie, the gallant struggle, the individual deed of audacity, which, by a stroke, and at a moment, secures an undying remembrance in the bosoms of a people. The fame of Marion rests very much upon tradition. There is little in the books to justify the strong and exciting relish with which the name is spoken and remembered throughout the country. ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... Queen, in astonishment, but without confusion, "in the name of the great Prophet I swear that I have never spoken to this young man. This is the first time I ever saw him, and in nothing have I encouraged his audacity." ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... Accordingly, in the panegyric of cold spirits, Washington disappears in a cloud of commonplaces; in the rhodomontade of boiling patriots, he expires in the agonies of rant. Now, the sooner this bundle of mediocre talents and moral qualities, which its contrivers have the audacity to call George Washington, is hissed out of existence, the better it will be for the cause of talent and the cause of morals; contempt of that is the condition of insight. He had no genius, it seems. O no! genius, we must suppose, is the peculiar ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... lands had been carried out with the most shameful injustice towards the very Government which had sanctioned it; and that the soldiers, who went with texts of Scripture on their lips, and swords in their hands, to destroy Popery, had cheated[507] their officers and self-elected rulers with shameless audacity. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... Harrington's. The whole staircase was crowded with people, and even down in the hall it was so full of ladies and gentlemen that there was no question of moving about. However, I made my way as far as the stairs, every one wondering at my audacity, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... was impossible for them to retain, in order to retain what it would destroy their influence to give up; they got possession of him to the extent of insinuating subtly into his mind ideas which they made him think he himself originated; and finally they capped the climax of their skilful audacity, by taking him out of "practical relations" with the party to which he was indebted for his elevation, and made him the representative of the small party which voted against him, and of the defeated Rebel Confederacy, which, of course, could not do even that. The Southern politicians ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... a piece of cool audacity that we had bets on the check, two of my assistants declaring it to be O.K., while the other three and myself declared it to be a forgery. Further inquiries, of course, proved that the opinion of the ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... planned it without asking Drew's support. But it called for enough audacity, luck, and nerve to be appealing. During the war the Kentuckian had seen such schemes win out time and ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... delicacies of shading, no subtleties of psychological analysis. In short, Robber Moor and his brother give the impression of having been made to a scheme rather than copied from nature. Nevertheless the scheme is conceived with superb audacity and executed with a dramatic power and insight that had ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... commonly held to belong only to l'union legale, in one or two strata of French society. She was capable of sentiment; she had hidden veins of womanish weakness; but at the same time the little creature's prevailing temper was one of remarkable coolness and audacity. She judged for herself; she had read for herself, observed for herself. Such a temper had hitherto preserved her from adventures; but, upon occasion, it might as easily land her in one. She was at once a daughter of art and a daughter of the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the Paris couturiers had secured on the American woman in their absolute dictation as to her fashions in dress, had interested Edward Bok for some time. As he studied the question, he was constantly amazed at the audacity with which these French dressmakers and milliners, often themselves of little taste and scant morals, cracked the whip, and the docility with which the American woman blindly and unintelligently danced to their measure. The deeper he went into the matter, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... audacity, there is not much that can be compared with his address to the officers of the Atlantic Fleet on ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... had been made to him; since that he had gained courage by flirting with Patience Oriel. No faint heart ever won a fair lady, as he was well aware; he resolved, therefore, that his heart should not be faint, and that he would see whether the fair lady might not be won by becoming audacity. ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... profane man, but the audacity of this stranger who was about to settle down among them for purposes best known to herself, and them who sent her, quite overcame him. Marcia Lowe gave a hearty laugh and ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... erection of this fort, and the appointment of this ugly little man of war as commander, the Yankees continued the interlopings hinted at in my last chapter, and at length had the audacity to squat themselves down within the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... deeply, and make a decision as to the sacrifice which would ensure life, or give some hope of life. In a moment of effective thought, he had to perceive and weigh a man's whole existence, then act, with method and audacity. ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel

... certain forms, to kill another merely because he found his continued existence personally inconvenient. That was what Burr had done; and morally it was undoubtedly murder. Throughout the whole East Burr became a man marked with the brand of Cain. He soon perceived it, but his audacity would not accept defeat. He turned to the West, and initiated a daring conspiracy which, as he hoped, would make him, if not President of the United States, ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... Billy's humble soul was prostrate with admiration, and when Hurlbut led the first attack on the monopolistic tendencies of the Republican party, Representative Rollinson, chuckling in his beard at the handsome youth's audacity, himself dared so greatly as to clap his hands aloud. Hurlbut, on the floor, was always a storm centre: tall, dramatic, bold, the members put down their newspapers whenever his strong voice was heard demanding recognition, and his "Mr. ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... then, repine at all at the open development of unbelief in Germany, supposing unbelief is to be, or at its growing audacity in England; not as if I were satisfied with the state of things, considered positively, but because, in the unavoidable alternative of avowed unbelief and secret, my own personal leaning is in favour of the former. I hold that unbelief is in some shape unavoidable in an age of intellect ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... conquered beforehand, by a sure instinct that was not misled by the protest of their adversaries. They bent before a new power, to which their old hatreds did not attach, which they believed to be in some sort created by their own hands, and of which they had not yet measured the audacity. The mass of the population, the true France, hailed with joy the hope of order and of a regular and strong administration. They were not prejudiced in favor of the philosophic constitution so long propounded by Sieyes. In the eyes of the nation, ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... picking fruit, till, unhappily, one of the most attractive of them plucked a fruit and offered it to the king, thinking, probably, to please him. He took it, however, as a dire offence, and, declaring that it was the first time a woman had had the audacity to offer him food, ordered the pages to lead her off to execution. No sooner had the words been uttered than the abominable little black imps rushed at her like a pack of beagles, slipping off their cord turbans and throwing the ropes round her ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... which the war was pushed irresistibly forward to the final triumph may now forget all that and delight our thoughts with the story of what our men did. Their officers understood the grim and exacting task they had undertaken and performed it with an audacity, efficiency, and unhesitating courage that touch the story of convoy and battle with imperishable distinction at every turn, whether the enterprise were great or small, from their great chiefs, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson

... house and gardens at Bludan were always full of people—my poor of course, but others too. Moslems flung themselves on the ground, shedding bitter tears, and tearing their beards with grief for the loss of the man whose life the Wali had the audacity to report they wished to take. They kept asking, "What have we done that your Government should take him away from us?" "Let some of us go over to your land, and kneel at the feet of your Queen, and ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... The audacity and frequency with which outrages are committed, forbid us, in justice to our consciences, to omit to use the powers we possess, to bring them to the severe action of the law; and when we find our powers inadequate, to draw upon them public attention, and the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... is not holding Jim Cummings up in a laudatory spirit, or as an object to be envied and imitated, but as everything else has its degrees of comparison, so has the methods employed in committing robbery, and the address, audacity, skill, success and intelligence displayed by Jim Cummings in robbing the Adams Express Company of a cool $53,000, cannot help but excite a feeling akin to admiration. As this was his first attempt, it would take subsequent years to measure the height which he might attain as ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... little jade who has the conceit and audacity to propose to me to wind up my business (as if she understood the whole process!), and let my house, and go to my farm at Cross Corners. What do ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... general disaster. He scarcely alluded to the corruption and peculation prevalent in all high places, diluted in its downward percolation till sutlers and horse-thieves would strive in vain to emulate the fraudulent audacity of their superiors. It was well he spared me then, for soon after landing, my eyes and ears grew weary with the repetition of all these ignoble details. To illustrate how heavily the taxes were already beginning to weigh on the non-militant part of the population, my informant proved ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... startled and bewildered by the audacity of their scheme; but forgetting the gratitude which he owed to Jiuyemon for sparing his life on the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... pale cheeks flushed a deep red, his nostrils expanded or contracted according to the chances of the game; and the melancholy man, who usually sat with his head bowed down as though overburdened, was of a sudden seized by a spirit of audacity, of rashness, of foolhardiness, that not seldom gained him splendid success, and reminded me of the saying, "Good luck is with the rash man." It certainly ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... must make the rhythms which the poet has not made for him, then I think we had better continue literary colonists. I shrink from a lawless independence to which all the virile energy and trampling audacity of Mr. Whitman fail to reconcile me. But there is room for everybody and everything in our huge hemisphere. Young America is like a three-year-old colt with his saddle and bridle just taken off. The first thing he wants to do is to roll. He is a droll object, sprawling in ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... no conjurors more subtle in taking us in at every available opportunity with or without reason, often for the sole pleasure of playing tricks on us. And they play these tricks with incredible simplicity, astonishing audacity, unparalleled ingenuity. They play tricks from morning till night, and they all do it—the most virtuous, the most upright, the most sensible of them. You may add that sometimes they are to some extent driven to do these things. Man has always idiotic fits of obstinacy and tyrannical desires. ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... spread out upon the sofa! How capital was the cold beef and pickles, the gruyere cheese, the bottled beer! How they laughed and enjoyed themselves, always with due consideration not to disturb the sleepers above. How Everett, with the audacity born of the swing back of the pendulum, seized upon ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... which none but a sovereign pontiff may wield; and very clearly phrased, that all might understand, the declaration in the words of his Holiness himself, that he had determined to "mortify the over-weening audacity of the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... gave little heed to a string of unsavoury invectives compounded out of such epithets as "ugly," "splay-footed," and "shapeless;" such phrases as "stuff and nonsense," "malignant trash," "impertinent puppy," and "audacity of impudence;" and other samples from the polemical vocabulary of the personage who, by the irony of fate, filled the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. The substance of Professor Wilson's ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... class gasped at the sheer audacity of the deed. A ray of reflected light caught the teacher's eye, and she pounced upon the boy before he could remove the ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... everything in the Old and New Testaments which can be distorted into an antichristian and heathen meaning they regard as the foundation of Christianity. In support of their assertion that Christianity is not opposed to the use of force, these men usually, with the greatest audacity, bring together all the most obscure passages from the Old and New Testaments, interpreting them in the most unchristian way—the punishment of Ananias and Sapphira, of Simon the Sorcerer, etc. They quote all those sayings of Christ's which can possibly ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... I can't be quite sure whether I like her or not. I at least admire her audacity and her steel-trap quickness of mind. She has a dead white skin, green eyes, and most wonderful hair, hair the color of a well-polished copper samovar. She is an extremely thin woman who affects sheathe skirts and rather reminds me of a boa-constrictor. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... "I've considered that," says he; "but sometimes the bald truth sounds singularly unconvincing. I'm sure it would in this case. If the young lady was familiar with all the buoyant audacity of your irrepressible nature, perhaps it would be different. No, young man, I fear I must ask you ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... in naval history for its audacity and success. The victors had only twelve wounded; the enemy lost one hundred and nineteen killed and ninety-seven wounded. Captain Hamilton was knighted for this achievement, the legislature of Jamaica presented him with a sword valued at three ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... with the audacity of Catiline—an audacity, which, though natural, stood him well in stead, as a mask to cover deep designs—that even now, when he felt himself to be more than suspected, instead of avoiding notoriety, and shunning the companionship of his fellow traitors, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... vigilance at the different posts; notwithstanding which the most daring attacks are often made with success, sometimes on parties of three or four, but oftener on individuals. About two years ago a band of them had the audacity to attempt to take away some horses which were grazing before the gate of the N.W. Company's fort; and, after braving the fire from the few people then at the establishment through the whole day, and returning their shots occasionally, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... wonderfully brave," she said. "Do you appreciate that you had the audacity to propose to the Princess Royal of Valeria while she sat in the Royal Box before all ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... content to go humbly forward with him, convinced that, as it was written, so and no otherwise should it be. Even when he deservedly failed to become a shining light in the literary firmament to which he aspired—an unheard-of piece of audacity on the part of his authoress—I did not rebel. Miss SHEILA KAYE SMITH has an essential clarity of visualisation, a deep and still reserve of unforced pathos and an exquisite sense of the haunting word, that combine with a most competent alertness of movement to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various

... would be possible ill-feeling among the families of the Arden sisters, when the youngest, whom they had probably always pitied and looked down on, because of her comparatively unfortunate marriage, should have the audacity to think of using the arms of their father, to which ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes

... advise me. Now as you look at me—" The young man's eyes burned into hers so that with all her audacity Nora felt the colour rising in her face. "Which would you suggest as the most suitable style for me, the psyche ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... air which he generally wore; and with that brutal audacity which he used as a weapon, he said: "Present company ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... heads together on the situation, had gone to a solicitor, had balanced possibilities, and had resolved to make the plunge of matrimony. 'Nothing venture, nothing have,' Christine had said, with some of her old audacity. ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy



Words linked to "Audacity" :   temerity, cheek, presumptuousness, hardihood, daring, brass, nerve, assumption, audacious, presumption, effrontery, audaciousness



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com