foolhardy disregard of danger; recklessness

This word appears in a quote by my friend David LaGrand in the Grand Rapids Press today: “If any Democrat had the temerity to tell me who I should or shouldn’t trust as my treasurer, it would be a very short conversation.” It also appears in the excellent courtroom speech by Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird: “And so a quiet, respectable, humble [man] who had the unmitigated temerity to ‘feel sorry’ for a white woman has had to put his word against two white people’s.”