intrepid
/ɪnˈtrɛpɪd
/adjective
Fearless; adventurous (often used for rhetorical or humorous effect): our intrepid reporter...
- I see an intrepid adventurer plodding blindly through a world of booby traps, goblins, jesters and dragons.
- The intrepid adventurer has only sailed once in his life, on a short trip around the Greek Islands 22 years ago.
- An intrepid adventurer will persist all the way to the end of the line.
Synonyms
fearless, unafraid, undaunted, dauntless, undismayed, unalarmed, unflinching, unshrinking, unblenching, unabashed, bold, daring, audacious, adventurous, dashing, heroic, dynamic, spirited, mettlesome, confident, indomitable;
brave, courageous, valiant, valorous, stout-hearted, lionhearted, stalwart, plucky
informal gutsy, spunky, game, ballsy, go-ahead, have-a-go
archaic doughty
rare venturous
Derivatives
intrepidity
/ noun ...- Later, the Balkans provided a crisis of moral weight sufficient to rival those earlier times - especially for those writers and journalists, mostly on the center-left, who had the courage and intrepidity to go there.
- His compassionate work arises from the noblest of philosophical traditions, the true spirit of which is distinctly Indian and invokes a detached intrepidity, celebrates joy in birth and life and accepts death with grace.
- As a pamphlet account of his execution published shortly after his death put it, Turpin ‘went off this stage with as much intrepidity and unconcern, as if he had been taking horse to go on a journey’.
intrepidly
/ adverb ...- To this end she has begun persistently and intrepidly, balancing on the narrow window ledge, whilst knocking voraciously on the glass with her delicate little paw until someone does the honours and opens ‘her’ door!
- More intrepidly, he challenged the planetary medical profession, which claimed that fat you ate became fat to hate - resulting in arteries that clogged and hearts that conked.
- The audience who does not know her works, were also surprised because she intrepidly presented something that previously was considered taboo or at least controversial.
Origin
Late 17th century: from French intrépide or Latin intrepidus, from in- 'not' + trepidus 'alarmed'.
tremendous from mid 17th century:
Tremendous goes back to Latin tremere ‘to tremble’, and had the original sense of something that makes you tremble (Middle English). Trepidation (Late Middle English) and intrepid (late 17th century) are from the related trepidare ‘tremble’.