courage

Meanings

Noun

• The quality of being confident, not afraid or easily intimidated, but without being incautious or inconsiderate.
• The ability to overcome one's fear, do or live things which one finds frightening.
• 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.

Verb

• To encourage.

Origin

• From Middle English corage, from Old French corage (French courage), from Vulgar Latin *corāticum, from Latin cor. Distantly related to cardiac, which is from Greek, but from the same Proto-Indo-European root. Displaced Middle English elne, ellen, from Old English ellen ("courage, valor").