Words To Bring Back: “Daresay”

– 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!

4 comments for “Words To Bring Back: “Daresay”

  1. Kathryn Hildebrandt
    2022.05.02 at 2107

    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.”

    • 2022.05.02 at 2121

      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?

      • Kathryn Hildebrandt
        2022.05.05 at 2040

        Old-growing brains, and the language will die with us, I fear.

        So, “daresay” does not mean that one dares to say?

        • 2022.05.05 at 2119

          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.”

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