Forms: 5 audacite, 5–6 -yte, 6–7 -itie, 7 -itye, 6– audacity. [f. L. audāc-em AUDACIOUS + -ITY; see -ACITY: cf. It. audacita (Florio, 1611).]
1. Boldness, daring, intrepidity; confidence.
1432–50. trans. Higden (1865), I. 61. Euery thynge is of more animosite and audacite in his universalle then his parte parcialle.
1538. Coverdale, N. T., Ded. It doth … encourage me now likewyse to use the same audacity toward your grace.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 454. Such is the audacitie of man, that hee hath learned to counterfeit Nature.
1714. Steele, Lover (1723), 30. Some … have relapsed from the Audacity they had arrived at, into their first Bashfulness.
1839–42. Alison, Hist. Europe, lvii. § 9. Under the eye of the Emperor … nothing was impracticable to their audacity.
b. Bold departure from the conventional form; daring originality.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, viii. 104. The beauty of its [a tower’s] details and the audacity of its construction.
1878. Tait & Stewart, Unseen Univ., Introd. 21. In strength and happy audacity of language.
2. Boldness combined with disregard of consequences; venturesomeness, rashness, recklessness.
1531. Elyot, Gov. (1580), 163. Audacitie … is an excessiue and inordinate trust, to escape all daungers.
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 622/1. Fortitude is different from Audacity, Ferocity, inconderate Temerity.
1840. Macaulay, Clive, 9. Neither climate nor poverty … could tame the desperate audacity of his spirit.
3. Open disregard of the restraints of decorum or morality; effrontery, impudence, shamelessness.
1545. Joye, Exp. Daniel vii. (R.). With the most arrogant audacite thei dare alter … and expowne Gods lawes and gospell at their plesures.
1865. Livingstone, Zambesi, vi. 140. His Excellency was shocked at her audacity, and reprimanded her.
4. Boldness in the concrete, a bold creature.
1658. Sir T. Browne, Hydriot., 39. Those audacities, that durst be nothing, and return into their Chaos again.
