Where does dare come from?

The word dare generally means “to have the courage or boldness for something.” It can be positive (She dared to venture into outer space) or negative (Don’t you dare eat the last cookie!)

The verb dare is found in Old English, with the noun form, a “challenge” or “defiance,” coming in the 1500s.

Children popularly egg each other on to do a dare—or more tauntingly, the double dare. This is when a friend urges another to do something slightly dangerous or humiliating, sometimes as a prank (e.g., I dare you to ding-dong-ditch the neighbor’s house). Your friend doesn’t want to do it? Then double-dog dare them. This pastime inspired the 1980–90s Nickelodeon show Double Dare involving trivia and slimy, physical challenges.

And then there’s the game truth or dare, where players take turns challenging each other to answer personal or difficult questions (truth) or do an unpleasant task (dare). The term truth or dare has been dated to at least the 1930s, though forms of the game run back centuries. As early as the 1600s, for instance, children played a similar game called questions and commands.

These dares are not to be confused with D.A.R.E. In 1983, the school-based drug education program D.A.R.E., short for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, which started in Los Angeles and spread around the U.S. and U.K. Its “don’t do drugs” approach has been criticized over the decades for limited effectiveness, but in the 2010s D.A.R.E. revamped its curriculum to address concerns.