What does confide mean?
Confide is a verb meaning to entrust private thoughts, feelings, or secrets to another person, especially one whose discretion is trusted. It most often appears in the patterns 'confide something to someone' or 'confide to someone that...', as in 'She confided her worries to her mentor.' A second, more formal sense uses the preposition 'in': to confide in someone is to place trust or confidence in them, though this usage today leans literary. The word carries distinctly warm connotations — unlike neutral terms such as 'reveal' or 'divulge', confiding implies intimacy and a bond of trust between speaker and listener. Derived from the Latin 'confidere', meaning 'to have full trust', it shares its root with 'confidence', 'confidant', and 'fidelity'. Its noun derivatives include 'confidant' (the trusted recipient of secrets) and 'confidence'. Because so much of human closeness depends on selective disclosure, confide remains an essential word for describing how relationships deepen.
verbTo share private thoughts, feelings, or secrets with someone you trust. Also (with 'in') to place trust or confidence in someone.
- To tell someone about private or secret matters, trusting them not to repeat it (usually with 'to').
- To place trust or confidence in someone (usually with 'in', now somewhat formal or literary).
"She would only confide her fears to her closest friend."
"He finally confided to his sister that he was struggling at work."
"In her later years, she had no one left in whom she could confide."
Every time you confide in someone, you're using a word the ancient Romans built from 'fides' — the same root that gives us 'fidelity' and 'good faith'.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of confide
Confide comes from the Latin verb 'confidere', formed from 'com-' (an intensifying prefix) and 'fidere' ('to trust'), literally meaning 'to trust fully'. English adopted the word in the mid-16th century, initially in the sense of placing trust in someone, before the sense of disclosing secrets became dominant. It belongs to a large family of words descended from the Latin root 'fides' ('faith, trust'), including 'confidence', 'confident', 'confidant', 'fidelity', and 'fiduciary'.
Related word forms
How confide is actually used
The verb typically takes the pattern 'confide something to someone' or 'confide to someone that...'. The sense with 'in' ('confide in someone') is now chiefly formal or literary but remains well understood. The word carries warm connotations of intimacy and trust — it implies a relationship of confidence rather than mere disclosure.
Easily confused with confide
'Confide' is the verb meaning to share secrets, while 'confidant' is the noun for the trusted person who receives them.