Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or fact of being too bold; audacity.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From over- +‎ boldness, after overbold.

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Examples

  • But is there any potion which might serve as a test of overboldness and excessive and indiscreet boasting?

    Laws 2006

  • Our men through this extremity began to grow sick and feeble, and withal hopeless of good success; whereupon, very orderly, with good discretion they entreated me to regard the state of this business, and withal advised me that in conscience I ought to regard the safety of mine own life with the preservation of theirs, and that I should not, through my overboldness, leave their widows and fatherless children to give me bitter curses.

    The North-West Passage 2003

  • But whereas they contend that Moses did not mean what I say, but what they say, this I like not, love not: for though it were so, yet that their rashness belongs not to knowledge, but to overboldness, and not insight but vanity was its parent.

    The Confessions 1999

  • I was never an advocate of overboldness, but our guide erred in the other extreme.

    For The Admiral W.J. Marx

  • In our country, where the children are so often charged with overboldness, and where commercial individualism seriously threatens society, is there real danger that the intellectual self may be neglected and that individuality may consequently be lacking?

    How to Study and Teaching How to Study 1899

  • The fair girl knitted her brows in a frown at his overboldness.

    The Proud Prince 1898

  • Khent-Keshu, and Menus [chief of] the lands of the Fenkhu, be brought hither, and these Governors will testify that these things have come to pass at the desire of thy KA (_i. e._ double), and that Thenu doth not speak words of overboldness to thee, and that she is as [obedient as] thy hunting dogs.

    The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians 1895

  • Either from overboldness in the metaphors, or from some unaptness in the material of them, I have to confess that my mind rather rebels against these stretches of poetical prerogative.

    Shakespeare His Life Art And Characters Hudson, H N 1872

  • Either from overboldness in the metaphors, or from some unaptness in the material of them, I have to confess that my mind rather rebels against these stretches of poetical prerogative.

    Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. With An Historical Sketch Of The Origin And Growth Of The Drama In England Henry Norman Hudson 1850

  • Our men through this extremity began to grow sick and feeble, and withal hopeless of good success; whereupon, very orderly, with good discretion they entreated me to regard the state of this business, and withal advised me that in conscience I ought to regard the safety of mine own life with the preservation of theirs, and that I should not, through my overboldness, leave their widows and fatherless children to give me bitter curses.

    Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage Richard Hakluyt 1584

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