- confidence
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Antonyms: doubt: apprehensionContrasted words: *distrust, mistrust: despair, hopelessness (see under DESPONDENT)2 Confidence, self-confidence, assurance, self-assurance, self-possession, aplomb are comparable when denoting either a state of mind free from diffidence, misgivings, or embarrassment or the easy, cool, or collected bearing or behavior resulting from this attitude.Confidence stresses faith in oneself and in one's powers; it does not as a rule imply conceit nor preclude the suggestions of support from external agencies or influences or of modest recognition of that assistance{
far better that the task should be entrusted to one who had ... a sincere confidence in his power of dealing with the difficulties of the situation— Benson
}{the confidence that springs from complete mastery of his subject— Grandgent
}When self-sufficiency is connoted, self-confidence commonly replaces confidence{he has the self-confidence of one who has made money— Shaw
}{in extreme youth one has to be secondhand . . . one lacks self-confidence— Rose Macaulay
}Assurance is distinguishable from confidence only by its far stronger implication of certainty and its frequent suggestion of arrogance; thus, one meets a situation with confidence when one's belief in one's powers is strong, but with assurance when one never questions the outcome or the Tightness of what one is saying or doing{there was indeed in the personality of that little old lady the tremendous force of accumulated decision— the inherited assurance of one whose prestige had never been questioned— Galsworthy
}{no experience so far served to reveal the whole offensiveness of the man's assurance— Mary Austin
}Self-assurance implies an assured self-confidence{the serene self-assurance . . . of the Abbey is unlike the baffling compound of modesty and self-assertiveness in a Nonconformist chapel— Sperry
}{he wrote with that pleasing self-assurance which the civilized man occasionally shares with the swage— Repplier
}Self-possession implies an ease or coolness arising from command over one's powers; it connotes, usually, controlled but not repressed emotions and actions, or speech free from flurry and appropriate to the situation{she was rather afraid of the self-possession of the Morels, father and all. ... It was a cool, clear atmosphere, where everyone was himself, and in harmony— D. H. Lawrence
}{had that carefully cultivated air of quiet self-possession, suggesting inner repose and serenity— Strauss
}Aplomb describes the behavior or, less often, the bearing of one whose assurance or self-possession is conspicuously but not necessarily disagreeably evident{ignoring with admirable aplomb the fact that we are tardy— Lowes
}{it is native personality, and that alone, that endows a man to stand before presidents and generals . . . with aplomb— Whitman
}Analogous words: *courage, resolution, mettle, spirit, tenacityAntonyms: diffidenceContrasted words: modesty, bashfulness, shyness (see corresponding adjectives at SHY): misgiving, *apprehension
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
