If someone is man/woman enough to do something, they are brave enough to do it, while if we think someone should be braver, we might tell them to man up. The plucky youngster dragged his mother to safety. She was a bold politician who introduced radical reforms. Only the most intrepid travellers make it to this part of China.īold and valiant are both slightly literary words, while plucky is rather informal, and often refers to people who are brave in a situation where it is unlikely that they will succeed: The hostages were freed in a daring rescue. She is absolutely fearless on the ski slopes. If someone is fearless, they don’t feel afraid, while daring or intrepid people aren’t afraid to try new and frightening things: He couldn’t screw up the courage to jump. I’m trying to pluck up my courage to ask him out. In British, but not American, English, Dutch courage is a humorous reference to drinking alcohol to make yourself feel braver: When people try to make themselves feel brave before doing something that scares them, we can say that they pluck up (the/their) courage or screw up the/their courage. It takes guts to stand up to a bullying boss. If we say that something takes guts, we mean that you have to be brave to do it: She took the courageous decision to move abroad. He showed great courage throughout his illness. Police praised the bravery of people who came forward to give evidence. Be careful with the pronunciation of these words – you can hear a recording of them with both British and American voices if you click through to the dictionary entry: Another word for this is courage and the related adjective is courageous. When someone is brave, they show bravery.
Listen to the author reading this blog post: HRAUN / E+ / GettyImagesĮveryone has times when they have to do things that scare them, and there are lots of different ways to talk about this.
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