Malapertness

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The condition of being malapert. obsolete, uncountable

    "if once it be possessed with the boldnesse to despise, and malapertnesse to impugne the opinions which tofore it held in awfull reverence […], they will soone and easily admit an equall uncertainty in all other parts of their beleefe […]."

Example

More examples

"if once it be possessed with the boldnesse to despise, and malapertnesse to impugne the opinions which tofore it held in awfull reverence […], they will soone and easily admit an equall uncertainty in all other parts of their beleefe […]."

Etymology

From Middle English malepertnesse; equivalent to malapert + -ness.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.