▪ I. daring, vbl. n.1
(ˈdɛərɪŋ)
[f. dare v.1 + -ing1.]
The action of the verb dare1; adventurous courage, boldness, hardihood.
| 1611 Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. ix. ix. (1632) 596 Incredible darings..were not wanting. 1651 Hobbes Leviath. i. xv. 80 As if not the Cause, but the Degree of daring, made Fortitude. 1874 Green Short Hist. vii. §6. 406 The whole people had soon caught the self-confidence and daring of their Queen. |
▪ II. † ˈdaring, vbl. n.2 Obs.
[f. dare v.2]
The action of the verb dare2; esp. the catching of larks by dazing or fascinating them (see dare v.2 5).
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 113 Darynge, or drowpynge, licitacio, latitatio. 1602 Carew Cornwall (1811) 96 Little round nets fastened to a staff, not much unlike that which is used for daring of larks. 1704 Dict. Rust., Clap-net and Looking-glass; this is otherwise called Doring or Daring. 1766 Pennant Zool. I. 150 What was called daring of larks. |
b. attrib. and Comb., as daring-glass, daring-net.
| 1590 Greene Neuer too late (1600) 8 They set out their faces as Foulers doe their daring glasses, that the Larkes that soare highest, may stoope soonest. 1616 Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 712 You..shall with your horse and Hawke ride about her..till you come so neere her that you may lay your daring-net over her. 1659 Gauden Tears of Church 197 New notions..are many times..the daring-glasses or decoyes to bring men into the snares of their..damnable doctrines. |
▪ III. ˈdaring, ppl. a.1
[f. dare v.1 + -ing2.]
1. Of persons or their attributes: Bold, adventurous; hardy, audacious.
| 1582 Stanyhurst æneis, etc. (Arb.) 143 A loftye Thrasonical huf snuffe..in phisnomye daring. 1596 Shakes. 1 Hen. IV, v. i. 91, I do not thinke a brauer Gentleman..More daring, or more bold, is now aliue. 1667 Milton P.L. vi. 129 Half way he met His daring foe. 1758 S. Hayward Serm. xvii. 539 The daring insolence..of prophane Sinners. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 325 Montague, the most daring and inventive of financiers. |
2. transf. and fig.
| 1617 Middleton & Rowley Fair Quarrel i. i. 314 To walk unmuffl'd..Even in the daring'st streets through all the city. a 1661 Fuller Worthies (1840) III. 202 Witness Wimbleton in this county, a daring structure. 1697 Addison Ess. on Georgics, The last Georgic has indeed as many metaphors, but not so daring as this. 1876 Freeman Norm. Conq. V. 39 This daring legal fiction. |
† 3. In quasi-advb. comb. with another adj., as daring-hardy. Obs.
| 1593 Shakes. Rich. II, i. iii. 43 On paine of death, no person be so bold Or daring hardie as to touch the Listes. |
▪ IV. ˈdaring, ppl. a.2 Obs.
Also 4 dareand.
[f. dare v.2]
Staring, trembling, or crouching with fear, etc.: see the vb.
| 1333 Minor Poems, Halidon Hill 39 Now er þai dareand all for drede, Þat war bifore so stout and gay. 1611 Cotgr., Blotir, to..lye close to the ground, like a daring Larke, or affrighted fowle. |