Meaning & use
confidence
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Meanings
noununcountable
A feeling of belief in your own abilities, so that you are not afraid to try things.
Grammar: No plural: she lacks confidence.
Patterns
- have confidence in yourself
- lack confidence
- confidence to do something
She spoke with great confidence at the interview.
Winning the first match gave the team confidence.
He lacks the confidence to speak in public.
noununcountable
Trust that someone or something is good, honest or reliable, or that a result will be good.
Grammar: Often followed by in: confidence in the bank.
Patterns
- confidence in someone/something
- lose confidence in someone
- confidence that ...
Voters lost confidence in the government.
I have complete confidence in my doctor.
He answered with confidence that the plan would succeed.
nouncountableformal
A secret that you share with someone who promises to keep it private.
Grammar: Often in plural or in the phrase in confidence.
Patterns
- in confidence
- take someone into your confidence
She told me the news in confidence.
He broke her confidence by telling everyone.
They exchanged confidences late into the night.
Word forms
| plural | confidences |
|---|
Common combinations
- gain confidence
- He gained confidence after each successful presentation.
- lose confidence
- The public lost confidence in the system.
- in confidence
- I'm telling you this in confidence, so please keep it to yourself.
- vote of no confidence
- The parliament passed a vote of no confidence in the leader.
- boost your confidence
- Small wins can boost your confidence.
- self-confidence
- Her self-confidence grew with every performance.
Synonyms and how they differ
- self-assurance
- Self-assurance stresses calm certainty in your own abilities, and it describes a person's manner more than a feeling of trust.
- trust
- Trust is belief in another person's honesty, whereas confidence can be about yourself or about an outcome.
- faith
- Faith is trust without proof and often has an emotional or religious tone.
- assurance
- Assurance is a promise or a feeling of certainty, often given to calm someone.
Opposites
Word family
- confident adjective
- sure of yourself or of a result
- confidently adverb
- in a sure way
- confide verb
- to tell a secret to someone you trust
- confidential adjective
- meant to be kept secret
- overconfidence noun
- too much belief in your own ability
Commonly confused: confidence or confident? confidence or confidant?
confidence vs confident
Confidence is the noun and confident is the adjective, so you have confidence but you are confident.
confidence vs confidant
A confidant is a person you tell your secrets to, not the feeling of trust itself.
Practice
After months of practice, she performed with great ___.
Choose one answer.
After with great, a noun is needed, so confidence is correct. Confident is an adjective, confide is a verb, and confidential means secret.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “confidence”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.