confident

1. 1
   adjective

   Feeling sure of yourself, your abilities, and your own judgment.

   After months of rehearsal, the speaker felt confident addressing the crowd.

   Investors grew more confident as the company's profits rose.

   Similarself-assured, assured, secure, comfortable, bold

   Oppositeinsecure, shy

   Note

   Here the certainty has no object, because the trust is in oneself. The word usually stands alone (a confident speaker, she seemed confident) rather than taking of or that, as the "sure of a fact" meaning does. Its opposites, insecure and shy, show that it describes a temperament and a manner, not a judgment about the world.

2. 2
   adjective

   Very sure of something; certain that it is true or that it will happen.

   The scientist was confident that her results would hold up under review.

   We remain confident that the new plan will succeed.

   Similarsure, certain, convinced, positive, optimistic

   Oppositeunsure, uncertain, doubtful, skeptical

   Note

   Behind every sense lies Latin confidere, "to trust fully," the verb that also gave English confide. Here the trust is placed in a fact or an outcome, and the grammar shows it. Confident of takes a noun (confident of success), while confident that takes a whole clause (confident that she's not lying). Hedges such as pretty sit comfortably in front of it when full certainty would claim too much.

3. 3
   adjectivederogatoryobsolete

   Boldly forward to the point of rudeness; impudent and presuming beyond one's place.

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

   1775, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Duenna

   Note

   A term of reproach in older English, now obsolete. Sheridan's The Duenna (1775) calls a man "the most confident ruffian" for daring to approach her room at that hour of night. Latin confidens already carried this darker side, meaning bold, audacious and impudent alongside self-assured. Read it as an insult in period texts, but avoid it in modern writing, where it would be taken as praise.

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