audacious
adjective
Simple meaning
Bold and willing to take big risks.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ahdayshuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɑˈdeɪʃəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Showing willingness to take bold risks; recklessly daring.
Impudent, insolent.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Showing willingness to take bold risks; recklessly daring.
Used this way, audacious is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It carries warmth, so it reads as personal rather than detached.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Brave and principled
- Usage feel
- Warm and expressive
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: showing willingness to take bold risks
Word Forms
Audacious · Audacity · Audaciously
Where This Word Comes From
From Latin 'audax' (bold), from 'audere' (to dare).
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.