This noun is usually used in contexts where people are shocked or disappointed in someone else’s reckless behavior. “Temerity” can refer to possessing an unreasonable contempt of potential danger (also known as recklessness), or it can refer to the reckless act itself. It comes from the Latin “temere,” meaning “blindly, recklessly, haphazardly,” but the Latin can be traced back to older roots and different linguistic branches. In Proto-Indo-European, the “*temH-” root is also the basis of the Sanskrit “tamas-” (“darkness, gloom”), the Lithuanian “témti” (“to become dark”), and the Slavic “tĭma” (“darkness”).