courage

plural courages

1. uncountableusuallyThe quality of being confident, not afraid or easily intimidated, but without being incautious or inconsiderate.

   It takes a lot of courage to be successful in business.

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   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

2. uncountableusuallyThe ability to overcome one's fear, do or live things which one finds frightening.

   He plucked up the courage to tell her how he felt.

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   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

3. uncountableusuallyThe 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.

   2008, Maya Angelou, address for the 2008 Cornell University commencement Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.

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   “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

   Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.

   1993, Stanley P. Cornils, The Mourning After: How to Manage Grief Wisely

   I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.

   2008, Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

present singular third person courages · participle present couraging · participle past couraged · past couraged

1. obsoleteTo encourage.First known use 15th–17th c.

   Paul writeth unto Timothy, to instruct him, to teach him, to exhort, to courage him, to stir him up,

   1530, William Tyndale, An Answer unto Sir Thomas More's Dialogue

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   And wete yow wel sayd kynge Arthur vnto Vrres syster I shalle begynne to handle hym and serche vnto my power not presumyng vpon me that I am soo worthy to hele youre sone by my dedes / but I wille courage other men of worshyp to doo as I wylle doo

   1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter X, in Le Morte Darthur, book XIX