adventure means A feeling of desire for new and exciting things. It carries an Arena rating of 1568, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, adventure ranks #71 of 17,135 for Most Malleable Words, #3,500 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #6,444 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #6,628 of 17,105 for Most Storied Words.
adventure is pronounced /ədˈvɛn.t͡ʃə/.
Why “adventure” is a great word
A bold or risky undertaking in which dangers may be encountered and the outcome is uncertain. From Middle English aventuren, auntren, from Old French aventurer, from aventure ('chance, accident, occurrence'), from Latin adventūrus, future participle of advenīre ('to arrive, come to'). Unlike 'escapade,' which suggests a brief, mischievous lark, or 'ordeal,' which implies a grim trial endured, adventure carries the weight of deliberate choice and open possibility. It is the frost-bitten breath of a climber watching the ridge emerge through cloud, the creak of unmarked paper beneath an uncertain pen, the specific silence of a deep forest where no path is worn—a conscious stepping into the narrative of chance to meet what comes, a fleeting aliveness found only where the map ends.
Etymology
From Middle English aventure, aunter, anter, from Old French aventure, from Vulgar Latin *adventūra, from Latin adventūrus (“about to arrive, (Vulgar Latin) about to happen”), future active participle of adveniō (“to arrive”), which in the Romance languages took the sense of "to happen, befall" (see also advene). By surface analysis, advent + -ure. Compare Scots adventur, Swedish äventyr, German Abenteuer.
noun
- A feeling of desire for new and exciting things.e.g.“his sense of adventure”
- A remarkable occurrence; a striking event.e.g.“a life full of adventures”
- A daring feat; a bold undertaking, in which dangers are likely to be encountered, and the issue is staked upon unforeseen events; the encountering of risks.e.g.“He loved excitement and adventure.” — 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans
- A mercantile or speculative enterprise of hazard; a venture; a shipment by a merchant on his own account.
- A text adventure or an adventure game.e.g.“The first thing to strike me about Spyplane was that it is more like a verbal simulation than an adventure.” — 1984 May, “Spyplane”, in Crash, number 4, (review):
- That which happens by chance; hazard; hap.
- Chance of danger or loss.
- Risk; danger; peril.e.g.“He was in great adventure of his life.” — 1895, Lord Berners, transl., The Chronicles of Froissart:
verb
- To risk oneself.
- To risk oneself; to dare to go somewhere or undertake something.e.g.“[A]fter the confusion of tongues, when Japhet and his posteretie, emboldened by example of Noe, adventured by shipp into diverse west ilelandes, […]” — c. 1571, Edmund Campion, edited by A[lphonsus] F[ranciscus] Vossen, Two Bokes of the Histories of Ireland […], Assen, Drenthe: Van Gorcum & Comp N.V. […], published 1963, →OCLC, page 28:
- To try the chance; to take the risk.
- To dare to say or utter.
- To venture upon; to run the risk of; to dare.
- To risk or hazard; jeopard.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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