Etymologically
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confidenter

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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]

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