confidence

• confidency (dated)

From Middle English confidence, from Latin cōnfīdentia (possibly via Old French confidence), from cōnfīdō (“believe, confide in”) from con- (“with”) + fīdō (“trust”).

Morphologically confide +‎ -ence.

• enPR: kŏn'fĭdəns
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒn.fɪ.dəns/
  • (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑn.fɪ.dəns/

    • Audio (US):

      (file)

confidence (countable and uncountable, plural confidences)

1. Self-assurance.
2. A feeling of certainty; firm trust or belief; faith.

   I tell you this in the strictest confidence.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 118:8–9:

     It is better to truſt in the Lord : then to put confidence in man. / It is better to truſt in the Lord : then to put confidence in Princes.

   • 1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, page 39:

     Khedron hesitated for a moment, wondering how far he should take Jeserac into his confidence. He knew that Jeserac was kindly and well-intentioned, but he also knew that he must be bound by the same taboos that controlled everyone on Diaspar.

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion‎^[1]:

     But electric vehicles and the batteries that made them run became ensnared in corporate scandals, fraud, and monopolistic corruption that shook the confidence of the nation and inspired automotive upstarts.

3. Information held in secret; a piece of information shared but to thence be kept in secret.
   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 201:

     In the course of these confidences it became quite plain to me I had been represented to the wife of the high dignitary, and goodness knows to how many more people besides, as an exceptional and gifted creature - a piece of good fortune for the Company - a man you don’t get hold of every day.

4. (dated) Boldness; presumption.

• (antonym(s) of “self-assurance”): timidity, shyness, bashfulness, insecurity

• confidence on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Borrowed from Latin cōnfīdentia. Doublet of confiance.

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.fi.dɑ̃s/

confidence f (plural confidences)

1. confidence, secret

• confident

• “confidence”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.