| 释义 |
▪ I. confidence, n.|ˈkɒnfɪdəns|
Also 5 -ens.
[ad. L. confīdentia, n. of quality or state f. confīdent-em: see confident and -ence. Cf. F. confidence (14th c. in Oresme), but some of the senses are not found in F. (where they are expressed by confiance).]
1. The mental attitude of trusting in or relying on a person or thing; firm trust, reliance, faith. Const. in († to, on, upon).
c1430Lydg. in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems 47 Alle verteu..Made stable in god by gostly confidence. 1490Caxton Eneydos xxv. 93 The whiche goddes, hauynge confydence in trustynge his sayd promysse. 1535Coverdale Ps. cxvii. 9 It is better to trust in the Lorde, then to put eny confidence in man. 1557North tr. Gueuara's Diall Pr. 133 b/1 The sonne..will not haue to his father any great confidence. 1593Shakes. Rich. II, ii. iv. 6 The King reposeth all his confidence in thee. 1649Bp. Reynolds Hosea iv. 48 Confidence..in foraigne ayde. 1774Goldsm. Grecian Hist. I. 310 The king would place more confidence in the engagements of the nobility than upon those of the..capricious multitude. 1837Baroness Bunsen in Hare Life I. x. 448 He..never abused the most implicit confidence.
2. a. The feeling sure or certain of a fact or issue; assurance, certitude; assured expectation.
1555Eden Decades iii. iii. 104 They..with no lesse confydence licke their lippes secreately in hope of their praye. 1611Shakes. Wint. T. i. ii. 414 He thinkes, nay with all confidence he sweares, As he had seen't. a1698Temple Ess. Heroic Virtue Wks. 1731 I. 230 The very Confidence of Victory..makes Armies victorious. 1790Beatson Nav. & Mil. Mem. I. 209 Wrapped up in a vain confidence of his own abilities. 1872Freeman Hist. Ess. (ed. 3) 12 This story..I affirm with less confidence.
†b. Const. to do. Obs.
1667Milton P.L. vi. 343 Humbl'd by such rebuke, so farr beneath His confidence to equal God in power.
†c. in, on, upon confidence (of, that, to do).
a1600Hooker Eccl. Pol. vi. v. §6 (1841) Not in confidence to redeem sin but as tokens of meek submission. 1651Hobbes Leviath. ii. xvii. 88 Men agree to submit to some Man on confidence to be protected by him. 1654H. L'Estrange Chas. I (1655) 51 In confidence thereof, the Duke left him.
3. a. Assurance, boldness, fearlessness, arising from reliance (on oneself, on circumstances, on divine support, etc.).
1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 17 b, By the holy loue of charite we may haue great confydence and meke boldnesse. 1526Tindale Acts xxviii. 31 Preachyng the kyngdome of God..with all confidence [so 1611; 1881 Rev. boldness]. 1601Shakes. Jul. C. ii. ii. 49 Alas my Lord, Your wisedome is consum'd in confidence: Do not go forth to day: Call it my feare. 1752Johnson Rambler No. 194 ⁋3 He..was able to address those whom he never saw before with ease and confidence. 1832Irving Alhambra 367 At first she touched her lute with a faltering hand, but gathering confidence and animation as she proceeded, drew forth..soft aerial harmony.
b. Const. to have c. to do (anything).
1535Coverdale 1 Chron. xviii. [xvii]. 25 Therfore hath thy seruaunt founde (confydence) to make his prayer before the. 1705Stanhope Paraphr. III. 436 Who can have the confidence to think himself excused, toward those of a differing Judgement. 1818Jas. Mill Brit. India II. iv. v. 167 Conflans had no longer confidence to meet the English in the field.
4. a. In a bad sense: Assurance based on insufficient or improper grounds; excess of assurance, overboldness, hardihood, presumption, impudence.
1594Hooker Eccl. Pol. Ded. (J.), Their confidence, for the most part, riseth from too much credit given to their own wits. 1656Jer. Taylor in Evelyn's Mem. (1857) III. 72 The confidence of men, who of themselves are apt enough to hide their vices in irreligion. 1667Pepys Diary (1877) V. 56 My wife begun to complain to me of Willetts confidence in sitting cheek by jowl by us. 1694R. Molesworth Acc. Denmark (ed. 3) C iij b, The French Ambassador had the Confidence to tear out of the Book of Mottos in the Kings Library, this Verse, which Mr. Sydney..had written in it. 1712Steele Spect. No. 502 ⁋2 The intolerable Folly and Confidence of Players putting in Words of their own.
b. As an appellation: = Confident one.
1741Richardson Pamela (1824) I. xxii. 272 Do I want you, confidence! Yes, I do. Where have you been these two hours, that you never came near me?
5. An object or ground of trust; ‘that which gives confidence, boldness, or security’ (J.).
1535Coverdale Job xxxi. 24 Or, haue I sayde to the fynest golde of all: thou art my confidence? 1611Bible Prov. iii. 26 For the Lord shalbe thy confidence.
6. The confiding of private or secret matters to another; the relation of intimacy or trust between persons so confiding; confidential intimacy.
(In the first three quots. some take confidence as a humorous blunder for conference.)
1592Shakes. Rom. & Jul. ii. iv. 133, I desire some confidence with you. 1598― Merry W. i. iv. 172, I will tell your Worship more of the Wart, the next time we haue confidence. 1599― Much Ado iii. v. 3. 1613 ― Hen. VIII, i. ii. 167, With demure Confidence This pausingly ensu'de. 1632Hayward tr. Biondi's Eromena 172 He telling [it] in confidence to a friend of his. 1709Steele Tatler No. 52 ⁋1 No one was in Confidence with her in carrying on this Treaty but the matchless Virgulta. 1725De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 66 To see if he could pitch upon one man more likely than the rest, to enter into some confidence with. 1741Middleton Cicero I. iv. 244 A citizen who lived afterwards in great confidence with Caesar. 1828Scott F.M. Perth xv, I have possessed two or three tattling fools, in deep confidence, that, etc. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 489 Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my words repeated.
7. A confidential communication.
1748Chesterfield Lett. II. clxiv. 100 He will..be well informed of all that passes..by the confidences made him. 1860Sala Lady Chesterf. Pref. 3, I intended these Letters to be the confidences and counsels of a garrulous old woman of the world. 1870Helps Ess., Secrecy 54 Before you make any confidence, you should consider whether the thing you wish to confide is of weight enough to be a secret.
†8. Trustworthiness, as a personal quality. a person of confidence: one entrusted with matters of importance or secrecy, a confidential agent. Cf. confident a. 6.
1642Jer. Taylor Episc. (1647) 366 Bishops and Priests were men of great ability and surest confidence for determinations of justice. 1777Robertson Hist. Amer. (1783) II. 223 He sent a person of confidence to the Havana, with..farther orders. 1791Gentl. Mag. LXI. ii. 864 If your Lordship pleases, I will nominate a person of confidence. 1800tr. Cervantes' Force of Blood 161 She sent a man of confidence to the priest.
†9.
a. Law. = trust. Obs.
1536Act 27 Hen. VIII, c. 10 Feoffments, fines, recoveries, and other like assurances to uses, confidences, and trusts.—Seised..of..lands..to the use, confidence, or trust of any other person or persons, or of any body politick. 1574tr. Littleton's Tenures 97 a, Feoffments made uppon confidence to perfourme the will of the feoffour. 1628Coke On Litt. 271 If a man enfeoffe other men of his land vpon confidence, and to the intent to performe his last will. 1767Blackstone Comm. II. 332. 1848 Wharton Law Lex. 669/2 All matters of trust and confidence are exclusively cognizable in equity.
b. Eccl. (See quot.)
1872W. H. Jervis Gallican Ch. I. v. 212 note, A ‘confidence’ is a contract by which an ecclesiastic receives a benefice on condition of paying the emoluments, or a part of them, to a third person; or covenants to resign the preferment at a specified time.
10. confidence trick (game, etc.): a method of professional swindling, in which the victim is induced to hand over money or other valuables as a token of ‘confidence’ in the sharper. confidence man: one who practises this trick; a professional swindler of respectable appearance and address. orig. U.S.
1849New Orleans Picayune 21 June 1/4 ‘Well, then,’ continues the ‘confidence man’, ‘just lend me your watch till to-morrow.’ 1856Spirit of Age (Sacramento, Calif.) 14 Mar. 4/1 G. W. Meylert's now about town, playing the confidence game and making grand attempts at swindling. 1866E. A. Pollard Southern Hist. War II. xxv. 477 President Davis..was surrounded by adventurers and ‘confidence-men’. 1884Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 22 Nov. 6/5 For some weeks the newspapers here have waged a war of extermination against gamblers, confidence men, thieves and others of like ilk. 1884Spectator 9 Feb. 182/2 We know of no social puzzle equal in perplexity to the continual success of the Confidence Trick. 1886Century Mag. Feb. 512/2 [They are] Confidence sharps, young feller. 1887W. S. Gilbert Ruddigore ii. 37 There's confidence tricking, bad coin, pocket-picking, And several other disgraces. 1887Harper's Mag. Mar. 514/1 Bertha Heymann, ‘Queen of the confidence women’. 1909Daily Chron. 13 Nov. 4/4 Confidence-tricksters would rather meet a fly-flat than the most learned of Oxford dons; and that is also why the smart Yankee is their most common victim. 1911N.Y. Even. Post. 12 Sept. 1 S. A. Potter was arrested to-day on a charge of operating a confidence game. 1933C. Day Lewis Magnetic Mountain 47 The Insurance Agent, the Vicar, Hard Cheese the Confidence-Tricker. 1951E. E. Evans-Pritchard Social Anthropol. vi. 122 After giving advice to travellers..to avoid gambling and confidence tricksters. 1955Sci. Amer. Apr. 102/3 How you would behave toward two groups, one of whom had been told beforehand that you were outgoing, friendly and warm, while the other had been informed that you were surly, hostile and suspicious. Confidence men are well aware of this feedback effect of the milieu. 1959J. Braine Vodi v. 75 For a second he had an intimation that already on its way was some event likely to make him permanently happy, then decided not to be taken in by the confidence trick.
11. Used attrib., esp. in Statistics, as confidence coefficient or level, the particular probability used in defining a confidence interval, representing the likelihood that the interval will contain the parameter; confidence interval, a range of values so defined that there is a specified probability that the value of a parameter of a population lies within it; confidence limit, either of the two extreme values of a confidence interval.
1934J. Neyman in Jrnl. R. Statistical Soc. XCVII. 562 The form of this solution consists in determining certain intervals, which I propose to call the confidence intervals.., in which we may assume are contained the values of the estimated characters of the population, the probability of an error in a statement of this sort being equal to or less than 1—ε, where ε is any number 0x {pm}3σ x may be referred to as the 99·973 per cent confidence limits. 1968Brit. Med. Bull. XXIV. 234/1 The proportion of cases misdiagnosed in this way give approximately unbiased estimates of the required probabilities,..and confidence intervals can be found.
12. Comb., as confidence-inspiring adj.
1891W. James Let. 23 Aug. in R. B. Perry Tht. & Char. of W.J. (1935) I. 419 Our children grow lovelier every year and more confidence-inspiring. 1948B. G. M. Sundkler Bantu Prophets S. Afr. v. 128 It is instructive to study the yearly balance sheets of this Church..arranged in a confidence-inspiring manner.
▪ II. confidence, v. U.S. slang.|ˈkɒnfɪdəns|
[f. the n.]
trans. To swindle by means of a confidence trick.
1875Chicago Tribune 1 Oct. 4 In a back room of some large building..they are ‘confidenced’ of what money they may have about them. 1888Missouri Republ. 15 Feb. (Farmer), Detectives..arrested Lawrence Stanley..on a charge of confidencing Henry Mueller. |