a. Now only literary. [f. L. temerāri-us fortuitous, rash (f. temere blindly, rashly (see TEMEROUS) + -āri-us; cf. contr-ārius, extr-ārius, necess-ārius) + -OUS.]
1. Characterized by temerity; unreasonably adventurous; reckless, heedless, rash.
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 620/2. He is somwhat ouer temerarious & bold.
a. 1533. Frith, Answ. More (1548), E vj b. Because they shall not of temeraryous presumpcion reiect this olde father.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xvi. § 37. The King was one of the first that entred [the breach], choosing rather to be thought temerarious than timorous.
1645. Hammond, View Infallib., 38. Your resolves are temerarious and presumptuous.
1781. Johnson, in Boswell (1887), IV. 130. Does it not suppose, that the former judgment was temerarious or negligent?
1867. Dublin Rev., LXI. Oct., 347. In Galileo’s time it was undoubtedly temerarious to hold that the earth moves round the sun.
1890. J. R. Lunn, in Ch. Times, 21 Feb., 196/4. I do not think any one will be temerarious enough to maintain that.
† 2. Acting or happening at random; fortuitous, casual, haphazard. Obs.
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos., IX. (1701), 386/1. Now in heaven nothing is produced casually, nothing temerarious.
1682. Norris, Hierocles, 53. But we should ascribe nothing … to a fortuitous and temerarious cause.
1775. Harris, Philos. Arrangem., iii. These two principles are not merely casual and temerarious.
Hence Temerariousness.
1711. in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 133. He was overruled by the temerariousness of Orange.
1853. J. H. Newman, Idea University, viii. (1873), 471. The investigator should be free … to fix his mind intently, nay, exclusively, on his special object, without the risk of being distracted every other minute in the process and progress of his inquiry, by charges of temerariousness.
1775. Ash, Temerariousness, rashness, temerity.
