different between confident vs cocksure

English

Etymology

From Middle French confident, from Latin confidens (“confident, i.e. self-confident, in good or bad sense, bold, daring, audacious, impudent”), present participle of confidere (“to trust fully, confide”). See confide.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k?n.f?.d?nt/, [?k???.f?.dn?t]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k?n.f?.d?nt/, [?k???.f?.dn?t]
• Hyphenation: con?fi?dent

Adjective

confident (comparative more confident, superlative most confident)

1. Very sure of something; positive.

2. Self-assured, self-reliant, sure of oneself.
3. (obsolete, in negative sense) Forward, impudent.
   • 1775, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Duenna, I.2:

     I was rated as the most confident ruffian, for daring to approach her room at that hour of night.

Synonyms

• (self-confident): self-assured

Antonyms

• (self-confident): insecure, self-destructive

Related terms

• confidant
• confidante
• confide
• confidence
• confidential
• overconfident
• self-confident

Translations

Noun

confident (plural confidents)

1. Obsolete form of confidant.
   • 1684, John Dryden, The History of the League (originally in French by Louis Maimbourg)

     He managed this consultation with exceeding secrecy, admitting only four or five of his confidents, on whom he most relied

   • a certain Lawyer , a great Confident of the Rebels

Further reading

• confident in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• confident in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k??.fi.d??/

Noun

confident m (plural confidents, feminine confidente)

1. confidant

Related terms

• confidence

Further reading

• “confident” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Latin

Verb

c?nf?dent

1. third-person plural future active indicative of c?nf?d?

Romanian

Etymology

From French confident

Noun

confident m (plural confiden?i)

1. confidant

Declension

English

Alternative forms

• cock-sure

Etymology

Probably from cock +? sure, early 16th c.

Adjective

cocksure (comparative more cocksure, superlative most cocksure)

1. (informal) too confident; overconfident
   • 1716, Alexander Pope, letter to the Earl of Burlington

     I thought myself cocksure of his horse, which he readily promis'd me.

   • Cocksure certainty is the source of much that is worst in our present world, and it is something of which the contemplation of history ought to cure us, not only or chiefly because there were wise men in the past, but because so much that was thought wisdom turned out to be folly – which suggests that much of our own supposed wisdom is no better. I do not mean to maintain that we should lapse into a lazy scepticism. We should hold our beliefs, and hold them strongly. Nothing great is achieved without passion, but underneath the passion there should always be that large impersonal survey which sets limits to actions that our passions inspire.

Translations