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adventure

 
American Heritage Dictionary:

ad·ven·ture

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(ăd-vĕn'chər) pronunciation
n.
    1. An undertaking or enterprise of a hazardous nature.
    2. An undertaking of a questionable nature, especially one involving intervention in another state's affairs.
  2. An unusual or exciting experience: an adventure in dining.
  3. Participation in hazardous or exciting experiences: the love of adventure.
  4. A financial speculation or business venture.

v., -tured, -tur·ing, -tures.

v.tr.
  1. To venture upon; undertake or try.
  2. To expose to danger or risk; hazard.
v.intr.
  1. To take a risk; dare.
  2. To proceed despite risks.

[Middle English aventure, from Old French, from Latin adventūrus, future participle of advenīre, to arrive. See advent.]


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Roget's Thesaurus:

adventure

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noun

    An exciting, often hazardous undertaking: emprise, enterprise, venture. See safety/danger.

verb

  1. To run the risk of: chance, hazard, risk, venture. See safety/danger.
  2. To expose to possible loss or damage: compromise, hazard, risk, venture. See safety/danger.

Antonyms by Answers.com:

adventure

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n

Definition: risky or unexpected undertaking
Antonyms: avoidance, inaction, inactivity, inertia, latency, passiveness, stillness

Word Tutor:

adventure

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pronunciation

IN BRIEF: An exciting or dangerous happening.

pronunciation Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing. — Helen Keller (1880-1968); blind and deaf American writer and lecturer

LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!

Sign Language Videos:

adventure

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sign description: The index finger makes a forward circular motion under the opposite flat hand, palm down.



Quotes About:

Adventure

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Quotes:

"The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over." - Aesop

"And yet a little tumult, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an adventure of any lively description." - Lord Byron

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." - Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Adventure is worthwhile." - Amelia Earhart

"The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers; a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it." - George Farquhar

See more famous quotes about Adventure

Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary:

adventure

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  See crossword solutions for the clue Adventure.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Adventure

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For other uses, see Adventure (disambiguation).
Fridtjof Nansen won international fame after reaching a record northern latitude of 86°14′ during his North Pole expedition of 1893–96.

An adventure is defined as an exciting or unusual experience; it may also be a bold, usually risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome.[1] The term is often used to refer to activities with some potential for physical danger, such as skydiving, mountain climbing and or participating in extreme sports. The term also broadly refers to any enterprise that is potentially fraught with physical, financial or psychological risk, such as a business venture, a love affair, or other major life undertakings.

Adventurous experiences create psychological and physiological arousal,[2] which can be interpreted as negative (e.g. fear) or positive (e.g. flow), and which can be detrimental as stated by the Yerkes-Dodson law. For some people, adventure becomes a major pursuit in and of itself. According to adventurer André Malraux, in his La Condition Humaine (1933), "If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?". Similarly, Helen Keller stated that "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

Outdoor adventurous activities are typically undertaken for the purposes of recreation or excitement: examples are adventure racing and adventure tourism. Adventurous activities can also lead to gains in knowledge, such as those undertaken by explorers and pioneers. Adventure education intentionally uses challenging experiences for learning.

Contents

Adventure in mythology

Some of the oldest and most widespread stories in the world are stories of adventure such as Homer's The Odyssey.[3][4][5] Mythologist Joseph Campbell discussed his notion of the monomyth in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell proposed that the heroic mythological stories from culture to culture followed a similar underlying pattern, starting with the "call to adventure", followed by a hazardous journey, and eventual triumph. The adventure novel exhibits these "protagonist on adventurous journey" characteristics as do many popular feature films, such as Star Wars[6] and Raiders of the Lost Ark.[7]

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a well-known example of a fantasized adventure story.
Theodore Roosevelt traveled in 1913 to the Amazon rainforest to trace the River of Doubt later named the Rio Roosevelt.
T. E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia.

Adventurers

An adventurer is a person who bases his lifestyle or their fortunes on adventurous acts. An adventurer or adventuress is a term that usually takes one of three meanings:

  • One whose travels are unusual and often exotic, though not so unique as to qualify as exploration.
  • One who lives by their wits.
  • One who takes part in a risky or speculative course of action for profit or position.

In fiction, the adventurer figure or Picaro may be regarded as a descendant of the knight-errant of Medieval romance. Like the knight, the adventurer roams through episodic encounters, usually involving wealth, romance, or fighting. Unlike the knight, the adventurer was a realistic figure, often lower class or otherwise impoverished, who is forced to make his way to fortune, often by deceit. The picaresque novel originated in Spain in the middle of the fifteenth century, showcasing adventurers as roguish heroes of low social class who live by their wits in a corrupt society. Novels such as Lazarillo de Tormes were influential across Europe. Throughout the eighteenth century, a great number of novels featured bold, amoral, adventuring protagonists, who made their way into wealth and happiness, sometimes with and sometimes without the moral conversion that generally accompanies the Spanish model.

Under Victorian morality the term, used without qualifiers, came to imply a person of low moral character, often someone trying to marry for money.

In comic books such as Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe, the term "adventurer" is used as a synonym for "super-hero" when listing a character's occupation.

In role-playing games, the player characters are often professional adventurers, who earn wealth and fame by adventure, such as undertaking hazardous missions, exploring ruins, and slaying monsters. This stereotype is strong enough that the adventurers can often be used as a synonym for the player characters. Non-player character groups of adventurers can also exist, and can be an interesting encounter for the players.

List of adventurers

Historical adventurers

Modern adventurers

Text-x-generic.svg
 The embedded lists in this article may contain items that are not encyclopedic. Please help out by removing such elements and incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article. (February 2010)
Bear Grylls

Fictional adventurers

See also

References

  1. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved 4 January 2011.
  2. ^ M Gomà-i-Freixanet (2004), "Sensation Seeking and Participation in Physical Risk Sports", On the psychobiology of personality, Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-08-044209-9, http://books.google.com/?id=6YjcgAn8TfsC&pg=PA187 
  3. ^ New York Times
  4. ^ New York Times
  5. ^ Zweig, P. (1974). The adventurer: The fate of adventure in the Western world, New York: Basic Books.
  6. ^ New York Times
  7. ^ New York Times
  8. ^ Mummy.wikia.com

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Adventure

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Translations:

Adventure

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - eventyr, vovestykke
v. tr. - risikere, spille hasard
v. intr. - kaste sig ud i, vove sig ud i

idioms:

  • full of adventure    fuld af eventyrlyst

Nederlands (Dutch)
avontuur, durven, risico/gevaar lopen

Français (French)
n. - aventure, expérience, d'aventures
v. tr. - aventurer, risquer, hasarder
v. intr. - s'aventurer, se risquer dans

idioms:

  • full of adventure    plein d'aventures

Deutsch (German)
n. - Abenteuer, Erlebnis
v. - riskieren, sich wagen, Gefahr laufen

idioms:

  • full of adventure    abenteuerlich

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - περιπέτεια, τόλμημα, αποκοτιά, (οικον.) κερδοσκοπική επιχείρηση υψηλού κινδύνου, σπέκουλα

idioms:

  • full of adventure    γεμάτος περιπέτειες

Italiano (Italian)
avventura, esperienza

idioms:

  • full of adventure    avventuroso, avventurosamente

Português (Portuguese)
n. - aventura (f), façanha (f), coragem (f), espírito (m) aventureiro, empreendimento (m), especulação (f)

idioms:

  • full of adventure    cheio de aventura

Русский (Russian)
приключение, риск, авантюра

idioms:

  • full of adventure    полный риска, опасностей

Español (Spanish)
n. - experiencia, vivencia, aventura
v. tr. - experimentar, vivir, arriesgar
v. intr. - aventurarse, arriesgarse

idioms:

  • full of adventure    lleno de aventuras

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - äventyr, affärsföretag

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
冒险, 冒险精神, 激动人心的活动, 冒险活动, 投机活动, 冒险去做, 大胆说出, 使冒险

idioms:

  • full of adventure    充满冒险

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 冒險, 冒險精神, 激動人心的活動, 冒險活動, 投機活動
v. tr. - 冒險去做, 大膽說出, 使冒險
v. intr. - 冒險

idioms:

  • full of adventure    充滿冒險

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 모험, 뜻하지 않은 경험, 투기[사업]
v. tr. - 모험적으로 하다
v. intr. - 모험적으로 하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 冒険, 珍しい経験, 珍事, 投機
v. - 危険にさらす, 危険をおかす

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) مغامره, مجازفه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮הרפתקה, הסתכנות, העזה, השערה מסחרית‬
v. tr. - ‮הסתכן, סיכן‬
v. intr. - ‮העז לבוא או ללכת, העז להתחייב‬

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American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Roget's Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 byHoughton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Answers Corporation Antonyms by Answers.com. © 1999-present by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
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Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary. Collins Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary © Anne Bradford, 1986, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2008 HarperCollins Publishers All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Adventure.  Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

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