courage
noun
Simple meaning
The ability to overcome one's fear, do or live things which one finds frightening.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuruhjSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɝədʒ
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.
noun
The ability to overcome one's fear, do or live things which one finds frightening.
The ability to maintain one's will or intent despite either the experience of fear, frailty, or frustration; or the occurrence of adversity, difficulty, defeat or reversal. Moral fortitude.
The quality of being confident, not afraid or easily intimidated, but without being incautious or inconsiderate.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The ability to overcome one's fear, do or live things which one finds frightening.
Used this way, courage is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use courage
- “It took great courage to speak up and share her true feelings.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Courage resulting from intoxication.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Possessing or displaying courage.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.