Word of the Day Archive
Thursday March 21, 2013
insouciance \in-SOO-see-uhns; Fr. an-soo-SYAHNS\
, noun:
the quality of being insouciant; lack of care or concern; indifference.
He kept dropping an Indian club and picking it up with forced and scowling insouciance.
-- John Banville, Eclipse, 2007
Gleason gave me a warning or two about the possible dangers into which my insouciance might yet lead me.
-- Gore Vidal, Death in the Fifth Position, 1952
The Latin root sollicitaire coupled with the negating prefix in- literally means "to not disturb or agitate." This adjective entered English in the nineteenth century, shortly after the noun form insouciance started being used by English speakers.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for insouciance
