– Definition: v., archaic used to indicate that one believes something is probable.
– Used in a sentence: I daresay we need to get out the vote this November, or all will be lost.
– Why: You could always and instead use the more commonplace “suppose,” I suppose, but why be common? Flex those archaisms and focus your listeners’ attention!
These days, if people use “daresay,” they usually are expressing an unpopular or controversial opinion.
“I daresay, the falling piano and subsequent fatality was due to your neglect.”
Good point. I’ve even done that myself, as though it were two words (“dare” and “say”), though I don’t recall specifics. (I know that I said it, but not what..) An old-growing brain is a laff riot, innit?
Old-growing brains, and the language will die with us, I fear.
So, “daresay” does not mean that one dares to say?
That’s my fear too, along with the loss of a lot of what we in our early adulthood took for granted — a livable planet, say, or a functioning democracy. 🙁 I guess it could also mean “dare to say;” after all, as Humpty Dumpty said in Through the Looking-Glass, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”