Did you know?
If you're confident of the trustworthiness of your confidants, you're tuned into the origins of the word confidant. The word comes, via French, from the Italian confidente, meaning "trusting, having trust in," from Latin confīdere, meaning "to put one’s trust in, have confidence in.” Other descendants of confīdere in English include confide, confidence, confident, and confidential, all of which ultimately have Latin fīdere, meaning "to trust (in), rely (on)," as their root. Confidant (and its variant confidante, used especially of a woman) and confident are often confused, a topic about which we have plenty to say.
Did you know?
Is it confident or confidant? (Or is it confidante?)
If you find yourself unsure whether you should choose confident or confidant don’t feel bad; confidant comes to English from the French word confident, and when the word first entered our language it was often spelled that way, rather than as confidant. The difference is quite simple: confidant is a noun (meaning "a person in whom you confide things"), and confident is an adjective (defined as “having confidence”). You may well be confident in your confidant, but you would not be confidant in your confident. Although this distinction has not always been observed by writers, confidante is generally used for a female confidant. The word confidant is more frequently used to describe a man, but it may be applied to either gender.
Examples of confidant in a Sentence
Denise Petski, Deadline, 21 Apr. 2025
Yet Thune, a McConnell lieutenant and confidant throughout Trump’s first term, has hardly distanced himself from the former Majority Leader.
—David D. Kirkpatrick, New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2025
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) resurrected the position to put former Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), his close confidant, in the post.
—Mychael Schnell, The Hill, 27 Mar. 2025
But some Cabinet members and top confidants warned President Trump that two pillars of his flood-the-zone strategy could backfire: tariffs and Elon Musk's budget-gutting.
—Axios, 11 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for confidant
Cite this Entry
“Confidant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/confidant. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.
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confidant
noun
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