temerarious

Learned borrowing from Latin temerārius (“accidental, casual, rash, reckless”), from temerē (“by chance, at random, rashly”).^[1] Doublet of tenebrous.

• IPA^(key): /tɛməˈɹɛəɹi.əs/
• Rhymes: -ɛəɹi.əs

temerarious (comparative more temerarious, superlative most temerarious)

1. Characterized by temerity; recklessly daring or bold. [early 16th c.]

   Synonyms: audacious, brash, foolhardy, reckless, daredevil, madcap

   Antonym: timorous

   • 1534 (date written; published 1553), Thomas More, “A Dyalogue of Comforte agaynste Tribulacyon, […]. Chapter XVII.”, in Wyllyam Rastell [i.e., William Rastell], editor, The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, […], London: […] Iohn Cawod, Iohn Waly, and Richarde Tottell, published 30 April 1557, →OCLC, book II, page 1206, column 2:

     […] he furthwith by thinſtinct of yͤ ſpirite of god, in repꝛoche of all ſuch temerarious bold & blind iudgement, geuē vpon a mā whoſe inward mind and ſodain change they cannot ſee, ſhoꝛtly proued thē al deceiued, […]

   • 1888, Robert Louis Stevenson, “A Christmas Sermon”, in Across the Plains: With Other Memories and Essays, London: Chatto & Windus, […], published 1892, →OCLC, part IV, pages 314–315:

     To look back upon the past year, and see how little we have striven and to what small purpose; and how often we have been cowardly and hung back, or temerarious and rushed unwisely in; and how every day and all day long we have transgressed the law of kindness;—it may seem a paradox, but in the bitterness of these discoveries, a certain consolation resides.

   • 1910, John Buchan, “A Great Peril and A Great Salvation”, in Prester John, London, Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, →OCLC, page 361:

     It was a very bright, hot winter's day, and try as I might, I could not bring myself to think of any danger. I believe that in this way most temerarious deeds are done; the doer has become insensible to danger, and his imagination is clouded with some engrossing purpose.

   • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 132:

     With a vicious lunge the elephant swerved to the right to dispose of this temerarious foeman who dared intervene between himself and his intended victim; but he had not reckoned on the lightning quickness that could galvanize those steel muscles into action so marvelously swift as to baffle even a keener eyesight than Tantor’s.

   • 1922, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “The Birth of Sex”, in Fantasia of the Unconscious, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, →OCLC, page 152:

     Primarily and supremely man is always the pioneer of life, adventuring onward into the unknown, alone with his own temerarious, dauntless soul.

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “temerarious, a.”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “temerarious”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.