685: confide, confident, & confidant(e) Oct 23, 2016

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If you trust yourself you'd be confident, and if you trust someone else, you might confide information. 'Confide' comes from the Latin word, ''fidere' meaning 'to trust'—with the prefix 'con-' used as an intensifier—which gave English the words, 'fidelity' 'faith' and 'fealty' (and all the derivatives thereof). For the word 'confide', however, even though there is the nominal form, 'confidence', this does not reflect the meaning of trusting something or someone else, as much as general trust, so after a couple of centuries using 'confidence', 'English got the word, 'confidant(e)'.

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