confide

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English confiden,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin cōnfīdō (“to have full trust, rely completely”),^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} perhaps partly through Old French confider, as the American Heritage and Merriam-Webster dictionaries allow.^[3][2] The Latin verb is formed from the intensive prefix com- and fīdō (“to trust”),^{[4][5][6][10]} a verb connected with fidēs (“trust”), the source of faith,^[10][11] and going back to Proto-Indo-European *bheidh- (“to trust, confide, persuade”).^[6][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To trust or have faith in: the OED's first quotation is from R. Holland's Buke of Howlat, composed about 1448 and known from a copy of before 1525.^[4] Barnhart dates the word to before 1455, in Scottish use,^[5] and Etymonline to the mid-15th century.^[6] Dictionary.com's date of 1625–35 is much later than these.^[12]

Semantic evolution

For about three centuries the verb meant only "to trust", and Johnson (1755) knew it only as "to trust in; to put trust in".^[13] It is used with an object clause, "to feel sure that", from 1632, and without an object from 1654.^[4] The modern sense turned this trust outwards: from 1735, in G. Lyttelton's Letters from Persian, a person confides a secret to someone else, in effect placing it in their trust.^[4][6][5] Confide in a person, meaning to take them into one's confidence, is attested by 1785 according to Etymonline,^[6] while the OED's first example is from Robert Elsmere by Mrs Ward (1888).^[4] Confide in the sense of handing over a task or an object of care is recorded from 1861, in Buckle.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1448 – to trust or have faith in.^[4][5]
• 1632 – with an object clause, to feel sure that.^[4]
• 1654 – without an object, to be confident.^[4]
• 1735 – to tell as a secret.^[4][5][6]
• 1785 – confide in, to take someone into one's confidence.^[6] The OED's first example is from 1888.^[4]
• 1861 – to entrust a task or an object of care to someone.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To tell something secret or personal to someone in private: She confided her doubts about the move to her brother.^[14][2][4]
2. confide in: to talk privately to someone one trusts: He had nobody to confide in at the new school.^[14][2][4]
3. To have complete trust or faith in someone or something.^[14][2][4]
4. To give something into another's care; to entrust.^[14][2][4]
5. (archaic) To trust or feel sure that something is the case.^[7][4]

Word family

• confider
• unconfided
• confiding

Related words

• confidant
• confidante
• confidence
• confident
• confidential
• overconfident
• faith
• fidelity
• bide
• confederate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins