Confidence

How to spell confidence

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce confidence

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does confidence mean?

1. nounA feeling of self-assurance or firm trust in someone or something.
2. nounThe state of trusting someone with private information that should be kept secret.

Confidence in a sentence

• After months of practice she walked into the interview with real confidence.

• She told him about the merger in strict confidence.

• The manager expressed full confidence in the new accounting team.

• The lawyer treats every client disclosure as a matter of confidence.

Where does confidence come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Confidence comes from the Latin confidentia, meaning 'firm trust' or 'boldness', which was built on the verb confidere, 'to have full trust in'. That verb joins the intensifying prefix con-, here meaning 'thoroughly', with fidere, 'to trust', the same root that gives us 'fidelity' and even the motto-like 'bona fide', meaning 'in good faith'. English took the word in during the late 1400s and early 1500s, partly through Old French, with the sense of placing full reliance on someone or something. Over time it broadened from trusting others to the modern feeling of self-assurance and the related idea of a secret shared 'in confidence'. The fid in the middle is the spelling anchor worth remembering: it is the trust root, not the 'fed' sound it can blur into when spoken quickly.

How the word is built

• con- (with, thoroughly)
• fid (trust, from Latin fidere)
• -ence (noun suffix denoting a state or quality)