Library / English Dictionary

CONFIDE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Reveal in private; tell confidentially

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "confide" is one way to...):

break; bring out; disclose; discover; divulge; expose; give away; let on; let out; reveal; uncover; unwrap (make known to the public information that was previously known only to a few people or that was meant to be kept a secret)

"Confide" entails doing...:

trust (have confidence or faith in)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "confide"):

relieve; unbosom (relieve oneself of troubling information)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something to somebody
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence example:

They confide that there was a traffic accident

Derivation:

confidant (someone to whom private matters are confided)

confidence (a secret that is confided or entrusted to another)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Confer a trust upon

Example:

I commit my soul to God

Synonyms:

commit; confide; entrust; intrust; trust

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Hypernyms (to "confide" is one way to...):

give; hand; pass; pass on; reach; turn over (place into the hands or custody of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "confide"):

commend (give to in charge)

charge; consign (give over to another for care or safekeeping)

recommit (commit again)

obligate (commit in order to fulfill an obligation)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something to somebody

Derivation:

confidence (a trustful relationship)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I should have confided in him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"He can't never keep his money, that's sure," Hermann von Schmidt confided to his wife.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Three girls, the two eldest sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath, an awful charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a conceited, silly father.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The next morning brought another short note from Marianne—still affectionate, open, artless, confiding—everything that could make MY conduct most hateful.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Three kings protested to me, that in their whole reigns they never did once prefer any person of merit, unless by mistake, or treachery of some minister in whom they confided; neither would they do it if they were to live again: and they showed, with great strength of reason, that the royal throne could not be supported without corruption, because that positive, confident, restiff temper, which virtue infused into a man, was a perpetual clog to public business.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

If your abhorrence of me should make my assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in my cousin; and that there may be the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the morning.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Yet the matter was so delicate that I could not confide it to an agent without putting myself in his power.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She cried at parting, and confided her brother to my friendship as Ham had done.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

All in a minute various hints and trifles assumed shape and significance in Amy's mind, and told her what her sister never had confided to her.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The unfortunate lady has not the money, and there are none of her people in whom she could confide.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)