confidenter

Forms

cōnfīdenter (comparative cōnfīdentius, superlative cōnfīdentissimē)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin cōnfīdēns (“confident, bold”) + -ter, the present participle of cōnfīdō (“to trust, be sure”).^[2][3][4] That verb is a compound of com- and fīdō (“to trust”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *feiþe- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰeidʰ-e/o- (“to trust”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus, both in a good sense, of speaking with assurance because one has been promised something, and in a bad one, of someone standing up to the speaker with effrontery.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The adverb kept both senses of the participle.^[2][3] In the good sense Cicero has “I shall speak more confidently”, and Pliny the Elder says one should confidently judge it false that men are turned into wolves.^[2] In the bad sense it means audaciously or impudently: Afranius has a wife who shuts out her husband so boldly, and Apuleius a man who has lied with enough effrontery.^[2]

Cicero remarks that cōnfīdēns had come, through bad usage, to be taken as a fault.^[6] In Ecclesiastical Latin the adverb means “confidently”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of speaking with assurance and of effrontery.^[2][4]
• late 2nd century BC – Afranius uses it of a wife's boldness.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of speaking with confidence.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of judging a tale false.^[2][4]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of lying with effrontery.^[2][4]

Meanings

Adverb

1. With assurance, confidently.^[2][3]
2. Audaciously, with effrontery, impudently.^[2][1]

Related words

• cōnfīdēns
• cōnfīdentia

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson