Confidence
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Self-assurance. countable, uncountable
"He entered the ring with confidence."
- 2 freedom from doubt; belief in yourself and your abilities wordnet
- 3 A feeling of certainty; firm trust or belief; faith. countable, uncountable
"She had confidence it would soon end."
- 4 a secret that is confided or entrusted to another wordnet
- 5 Information held in secret; a piece of information shared but to thence be kept in secret. countable, uncountable
"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."
Show 4 more definitions
- 6 a feeling of trust (in someone or something) wordnet
- 7 Boldness; presumption. countable, dated, uncountable
- 8 a trustful relationship wordnet
- 9 a state of confident hopefulness that events will be favorable wordnet
Example
More examples"Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence."
Etymology
From Middle English confidence, from Latin cōnfīdentia (possibly via Old French confidence), from cōnfīdō (“believe, confide in”) from con- (“with”) + fīdō (“trust”). By surface analysis, confide + ence.
Related phrases
More for "confidence"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.