Definition of "hardihood"

[…] 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 […]

1789, Ann Ward Radcliffe, chapter 4, in The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne‎, London: T. Hookham, page 81

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.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I

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

1971, John M. Dorsey, “My Theory of Emotion”, in Psychology of Emotion‎, Detroit: Center for Health Education, page 108

[…] 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:

1644, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine or Discipline of Divorce: […], 2nd edition, London: [s.n.], book I, page 25

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

1798, Hannah Brand, “Adelinda”, in Plays and Poems‎, Norwich, act I, scene 1, page 358

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

1896, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “Chapter 9”, in The Island of Doctor Moreau (Heinemann’s Colonial Library of Popular Fiction; 52), London: William Heinemann; republished as The Island of Doctor Moreau: A Possibility, New York, N.Y.: Stone & Kimball, 1896,

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.

1973, Mary Stewart, The Hollow Hills‎, New York: William Morrow, Book 1, Chapter 7, p. 84

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” […]

1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor‎, volume 1, London: George Woodfall & Son, page 144

Now, as green sap ascends the steepled wood,Each hedge with such white bloom astounds our eyesAs sprang from Joseph’s rod, and testifiesHow best beauty’s born of hardihood.

1957, Sylvia Plath, “Mayflower”, in Collected Poems, New York: Harper & Row, published 1981, page 60

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

1995, Richard Wilbur, “Bone Key”, in Robert Pack, Jay Parini, editors, Introspections: American poets on one of their own poems, Hanover and London: University Press of New England for Middlebury College Press, published 1997, page 298