hardihood

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Unyielding boldness and daring; firmness in doing something that exposes one to difficulty, danger, or calamity; intrepidness.

   “[…] he came to impart other news; to prepare the Earl for death; for the morrow was appointed for his execution. He received the intelligence with the firm hardihood of indignant virtue, disdaining to solicit, and disdaining to repine […]”

   “Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world.”

   “Once endured it is enjoyed as my owndom. Elsewhere I refer to this process of enduring hardship as the only possible source of hardihood.”

2. (countable, uncountable)Excessive boldness; foolish daring; offensive assurance.

   “[…] that God should enact a dispensation for hard hearts to do that wherby they must live in priviledg’d adultery, however it go for the receav’d opinion, I shall ever disswade my self from so much hardihood as to beleeve:”

   “I have not the hardihood to dare to be vilely dishonest.”

   “I began to realise the hardihood of my expedition among these unknown people.”

   “I had not the arrogance—or the hardihood—to test my power again, but I put on hope, as a naked man welcomes rags in a winter storm.”

3. (countable, uncountable)Of a plant, an ability to withstand extreme conditions, hardiness.

   “The cheapness and hardihood of the musk-plant and marigold, to say nothing of their peculiar odour, has made them the most popular of “roots” […]”

   “Now, as green sap ascends the steepled wood, Each hedge with such white bloom astounds our eyes As sprang from Joseph’s rod, and testifies How best beauty’s born of hardihood.”

   “It’s hardihood that thrives, As when a screw pine that the gale has downed, Shooting new prop-roots from its trunk, survives In bristling disarray by change of ground,”