Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Blithe lack of concern; nonchalance.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The quality of being insouciant; heedless indifference or unconcern; carelessness of feeling or manner.
Wiktionary
- n. carelessness, heedlessness, indifference, or casual unconcern
- n. nonchalance
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Carelessness; heedlessness; thoughtlessness; unconcern.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the cheerful feeling you have when nothing is troubling you
Etymologies
- From French insouciance, from in- ("not") + souciant ("worrying"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The sheer insouciance from the IRS towards all tax-deviant clerics following Pulpit Freedom Sundays in 2008 and 2009 leaves little precedent for a change in policy this year.”
The Huffington Post: Stuart Whatley: Pulpit Politicking Returns for 2010 Election Cycle
“But his carelessness--what some have the nerve to call his insouciance putting a positive, oh-so-Continental spin on good old-fashioned incompetence--was his undoing.”
“Mr. Blair proffers a stauch defence of the U. K.'s "special relationship" with the U.S. and says he finds the "insouciance" with which it is treated in some quarters as "a little shocking".”
The Wall Street Journal: Tony Blair -- the Money Men's Friend
“In fact, the Fiver isn't even sure you spell insouciance "insouciance", it just typed the letters out, sat back in front of the television and waited for the microwaves to wash it out to sea.”
The Guardian: Syntheticpitchophobic Spurs Players; and The Gallic Shrug Made Flesh
“The pictures above show Smokey's parents, Sam & Braise, illustrating the concept of "méfiance" (see Sam, left) and carefree "insouciance" (see Braise, right).”
“For example, far from displaying "insouciance" with respect to scientific questions, as Crews alleges, David Jacobs is quite right to dismiss as irrelevant skeptical worries about the presumed impracticality of interstellar travel.”
“Suddenly, however, she laughed and a flash of the insouciance which is the keystone of her profession appeared in her smile.”
“He went his own way and lived as he pleased; having something about him of that shrewd, humorous, imperturbable "insouciance" which served Walt Whitman so well, and which is so much wiser, kindlier and more human a shield for an artist's freedom, than the sarcasms of a Whistler or the insolence of a Wilde.”
“He took the civil service examinations with an apparent indifference that made Strachey’s sister ask if his insouciance was a pose.”
“Dinner cooked by Jamie Oliver and served in the State Room of 11 Downing Street to women guests who included sensible role model Naomi Campbell and J K Rowling who, coincidentally, gave £1m to the Labour Party last year represents the kind of insouciance reminiscent of Marie Antoinette at Trianon.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘insouciance’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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allover
reintegrate, spight, surveillant, harmonize, Colophon, workplace, bigoted, unsighted, bridgework, salutation, voltmeter, octane and 159 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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250 Further Spelling Words
Another compilation of spelling words suitable for intermediate to advanced spellers.
venturi, aesir, affenpinscher, rottweiler, amanuensis, balletomane, hansard, sangfroid, yukata, capriccio, cuisse, heriot and 237 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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phrontistery - i
from phrontistery.info
iamb, ianthine, ibidem, iceblink, ichneumous, ichnite, ichnogram, ichnography, ictus, idolum, idoneous, ilke and 510 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Cool Words
Words I'd like to see enter common usage.
fricatrice, inchoate, imparlance, apothegm, ductile, parley, frisson, quiescent, redolent, insouciance, feckless, caviling and 25 more...
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fav1
ostensibly, fait accompli, edification, machination, vamp, abstruse, ebullient, tantamount, reductio, asymptotic, ad hominem, syllogism and 15 more...
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difficult words
ordure, tatterwallop, callipygian, odious, colophon, cynosure, hardener, emollience, valetudinarian, demonym, volage, polysemantic and 257 more...
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ICE
quincunx, adoxography, panjundrum, breloque, surd, scripturient, rousant, favrile, embouchure, aquarelle, griffonage, sussultatory and 234 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 1972 more... -
Verba Dilecta
delectable, notate, pauciloquy, paucity, pauciloquent, paucify, interscapilium, uropygium, inferna, nota, equipollent, prepollent and 677 more...
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Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
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GRE verbal 1
GRE
hypocrisy, wizened, arcane, nascent, trifling, malaise, quibble, derogatory, inept, recant, splenetic, insouciance and 21 more...
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Faves
nepenthe, cupidity, anodyne, obdurate, doleful, obsolescent, quale, piquant, velleity, inchoate, disport, facile and 366 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for insouciance.

bilby That's a bit like asking why cockroaches would survive a nuclear holocaust. Jan 2, 2013
Bosporan Why is there no entry for 'souciance'? Jan 2, 2013
d4divine similar to nonchalance Jun 28, 2008
d4divine similar to nonchalance Jun 28, 2008
yarb Motivated by insouciance, the
Despatch Clerk idly amuses himself
correcting the grosser solecisms
committed by his superiors to
print in the monthly house magazine (called
Info-Flo)...
- Peter Reading, Concord, from Tom O' Bedlam's Beauties, 1981 Jun 28, 2008
grammar "When Mr. O'Rourke set out into the world after a youthful Maoist phase (it was, after all, the '60s) there was an element of novelty to his insouciance, and his beliefs, like the larger movement of which he was a part, constituted their own kind of insurgency." Jan 10, 2007