courage
UK/ˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/
More pronunciations (2)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/ˈkʊɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/
courage noun: the quality of being confident, not afraid or easily intimidated, but without being incautious or inconsiderate.
Noun
courage (usually uncountable, plural courages)
- The quality of being confident, not afraid or easily intimidated, but without being incautious or inconsiderate.
- 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
- The 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.
- 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...
- The 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.
- “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
Verb
courage (third-person singular simple present courages, present participle couraging, simple past and past participle couraged)
- To encourage.
- 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 doo1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter X, in Le Morte Darthur, book XIX
- 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
courage meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
courage in Hindi
- quality of a confident character
- साहस sāhas, हौसला hauslā, हिम्मत himmat
- ability to do frightening things
- निर्भयता nirbhaytā, निर्भीकता nirbhīktā, निडरता niḍartā
courage in Tamil
- quality of a confident character
- தைரியம் tairiyam
courage in Marathi
- ability to do frightening things
- धाडस dhāḍas
courage in Urdu
- quality of a confident character
- ساہس sāhas, ہمت himmat
More languagesFewer languages
- courage in Bengali
- সাহস śahoś
- courage in Telugu
- ధైర్యము dhairyamu
- courage in Malayalam
- ധൈര്യം dhairyaṁ
- courage in Kannada
- ಧೈರ್ಯ dhairya, ಪೌರುಷ pauruṣa
- courage in Punjabi
- ਤੱਕ takka, حوصلہ ḥauṣlah, ਹੌਸਲਾ hauslā, ਸਾਹਸ sāhas
- courage in Gujarati
- હિંમત himmat
- courage in Odia
- ପରାକ୍ରମ parākrama, ଦିଲ୍ dil, ଛାତି chāti, କଲିଜା kalijā
- courage in Assamese
- সাহ xah, সাহস xahox
- courage in Nepali
- बहादुरी bahādurī, साहस sāhas, हिम्मत himmat
- courage in Pashto
- مړانه maṛā́na
- courage in Tagalog
- tapang, katapangan, lakas ng loob
- courage in Arabic
- شَجَاعَة šajāʕa, جَسَارَة jasāra
- courage in Malay
- keberanian
- courage in Indonesian
- keberanian
- courage in Persian
- شهامت šahâmat, جرات jorât, جسارت jasârat, شجاعت šajâ'at
- courage in Thai
- ความกล้า kwaam-glâa, ความกล้าหาญ kwaam-glâa-hǎan
- courage in Vietnamese
- can đảm
- courage in Myanmar
- သူရသတ္တိ sura.satti.
Examples of courage in a sentence
- It takes a lot of courage to be successful in business.
- 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:
- 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:
Synonyms of courage
16 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of courage
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | courages |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | courages |
| present participle | couraging |
| past participle | couraged |
| past | couraged |
Origin of courage
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”).
Words formed from courage
Phrases with courage
- took courage
- takes courage
- plucks up one's courage
- screws up one's courage
- gathers up one's courage
- plucked up one's courage
- screwed up one's courage
- gathered up one's courage
- plucking up one's courage
- screwing up one's courage
- gathering up one's courage
- took one's courage in both hands
3 more phrasesFewer phrases
Questions about courage
- What does courage mean?
- Courage means the quality of being confident, not afraid or easily intimidated, but without being incautious or inconsiderate.
- What is courage in Hindi?
- Courage in Hindi is साहस (sāhas), हौसला (hauslā), हिम्मत (himmat). See Courage meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use courage in a sentence?
- It takes a lot of courage to be successful in business.
- What part of speech is courage?
- Courage can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce courage?
- Courage is pronounced /ˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of courage?
- The plural of courage is courages.
Words near courage in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: courage (page history and authors); ಧೈರ್ಯ (Kannada) (page history and authors); جان (Punjabi) (page history and authors); କଲିଜା (Odia) (page history and authors); مړانه (Pashto) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ne-courage.ogg, en-us-courage.ogg.
Cite this entry: “courage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/courage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.