Courage Meaning
/ˈkʌ.ɹɪd͡ʒ/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThe quality of being confident, not afraid or easily intimidated, but without being incautious or inconsiderate.
nounThe ability to overcome one's fear, do or live things which one finds frightening.
Sentence Examples
You must build up your courage.
I admire you for your courage.
He showed great courage and determination.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The firefighter showed great ____ when entering the burning building.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
You must build up your ____.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English corage, from Old French corage (French courage), from Vulgar Latin *corāticum, from Latin cor (“heart”). Distantly related to cardiac (“of the heart”), which is from Greek, but from the same Proto-Indo-European root. Displaced Middle English elne, ellen, from Old English ellen (“courage, valor”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before."
— 1860, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Essay IV. Culture.”, in The Conduct of Life, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 120:
"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."
— 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear."
— 1897, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “[Pudd’nhead Wilson] Chapter XII”, in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson: And the Comedy Those Extraordinary Twins, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 155:
"“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”"
— 1942, C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters:
"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."
— 1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The firefighter showed great ____ when entering the burning building.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
You must build up your ____.