Lexicon: audacious – augur

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audacious, adj. [L. audax, bold, daring.]

Bold; brazen; impudent; disrespectful; impetuous; irreverent; presumptuous; rash; hasty; heedless; impulsive; foolishly unprepared.

audacity, n. [see audacious, adj.]

Pomposity; arrogance; presumption; nerve; reckless courage; lack of concern about what others think.

audible (-er), adj. [Med. L. < L. audīre, to hear.] (webplay: ear, hear, heard; loud enough).

Discernable; clearly heard; perceptible to the ear; sufficient in volume to hear.

audience (-s), n. [Fr. < L. audīre, to hear.] (webplay: sounds).

  1. Assembly for entertainment; people who gather to hear a program; group of people who meet to see a show.
  2. Group of observers; assembly of listeners and viewers; persons within hearing; assembly of listeners; auditory; [fig.] group of creatures in nature.
  3. Judgment; judicial hearing; ecclesiastical court in front of auditors; [fig.] judgment day interview.
  4. Court; place where an archbishop considers consecrations, elections, institutions, marriages, and so forth.
  5. Formal interview; communication between a superior and an inferior.

audit (-s), v. [L. audīre, to hear.]

Examine; probe; verify; adjust the account of.

auditor (-s), n. [AF < L. audīre, to hear.]

Listener; audience; [word play] accountant; finance examiner; official whose duty it is to verify accounts by reference to vouchers; one who has power to disallow improper charges.

auger, [see augur, n.]

aught, n. [OE aeht, possession, property.]

Anything; something; any part; a jot or tittle.

augment (-ed), v. [Fr. < L. augment-um, increase.]

Intensify; magnify; make greater; enlarge in size; extend by addition; expand the degree of; [philology] add a prefix to a word; increase the quality of a vowel.

augur, n. [Word play: pun on “auger” the tool and “augur” the omen.]

  1. [ED's var. spelling of “auger”; OE nafu, nave of a wheel + gar, piercer, borer, spear.] Carpentry tool; drill bit; long metal shank; [fig.] beak; hard bird mouth.
  2. [L. av-is, bird + -gar, talk; or L. augēre, increase, promote.] Prophet; diviner; soothsayer; Roman religious official who carried a staff; one who predicts future events in accordance with omens from the behavior of birds.