brave definition oxford english dictionary

Sheidlower, using a word that makes an opponent sound worse, more shameful, less worthy. Calling him a 'coward' is a 'dysphemism,' said Mr. To call a terrorist a freedom fighter is a euphemism. No one has argued that Tuesday's perpetrators were 'freedom fighters,' the usual defense for those who openly commit terrorists acts. In fact, there is little argument this time over the word terrorist itself. So why use the word? It can't be to demonize the terrorists: that was accomplished by their horrifying, horrific, heinous deeds, to borrow words that were also heavily, but accurately, used last week. As defined by the O.E.D., a dastard is 'one who does malicious acts in a cowardly skulking way.' Sheidlower said, which was another word used last week. 'Objectively, you have to say that what they did, while malevolent, was also a very brave act.' 'I don't think from any point of view we could call these perpetrators cowardly,' said Jesse Sheidlower, principal editor of the North American edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Yet such usage has nothing to do with the word's meaning as defined by dictionaries, by common or literary usage, or by etymologists. The implication is that the masterminds are cowards because they have not taken responsibility for their actions, or that the killers are cowards for selecting helpless victims.

Even the Taliban insisted that its government would never commit 'such cowardly acts.'Īll ascribed a lack of courage - or in the Webster dictionary definition, 'a shamefully excessive fear of danger' - to the killers who brazenly passed through airport security, coolly boarded four airliners, overpowered the crews and flew straight to their targets and to their own fiery graves. President Bush used it in his national address Tuesday night, and he was followed by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton Senator Tom Daschle, the majority leader the American Muslim Political Coordination Council and the bishop at the Cathedral of St. The word 'coward' (and the adverbial 'cowardly') cropped up with great frequency last week. The men who carried out Tuesday's attacks may have been mass murderers, terrorists, fanatics - but cowards?

Brave definition oxford english dictionary