confidential
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌkɑːnfɪˈdɛnʃl/
Forms: form: more confidential
form: most confidential
Etymology: From Latin confidentia + -al.
Senses: examples: text: The newspaper claims a leaked confidential report by the government admits to problems with corrupt MPs.
text: […] I have a communication of a very private—indeed, I will say, of a sacredly confidential nature, which I desire to make to you.
ref: 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Book 6, Chapter 61, p. 355:
text: It would tell against your reputation, losing a confidential document, wouldn’t it? Why didn’t you keep it confidential if it was confidential?
ref: 1960, Muriel Spark, chapter 10, in The Bachelors, Philadelphia: Lippincott, published 1961, page 163:
text: “One of the things that I think parents would tell you, and that students and victims and patients would tell you, is that we have a legal responsibility, but I think more importantly a moral responsibility, to hold their information confidential and private,” Blanton said.
ref: 2016 September 1, Ellie Kaufman, “University of Kentucky sues student newspaper over sexual assault case”, in CNN:
synonyms: private
classified
off the record
privileged
secret
dern
antonyms: public
on the record
glosses: Kept, or meant to be kept, secret within a certain circle of persons; not intended to be known publicly
examples: text: Sitting in front of the fire, they became quite confidential, and began to gossip.
text: Long, long would it be ere Miss Crawford’s name passed his lips again, or she could hope for a renewal of such confidential intercourse as had been.
ref: 1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter XVI, in Mansfield Park: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 310:
text: I was only alive to the condensed confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend.
ref: 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 11, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 60:
text: She and Bertha had never been on confidential terms, but at such a crisis the barriers of reserve must surely fall:
ref: 1905, Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, New York: Scribner, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 329:
text: Miss Raste was encouraged to be entirely confidential, to withhold nothing even about herself, by the confidence-inspiring and kindly aspect of Elsie’s face.
ref: 1923, Arnold Bennett, Riceyman Steps, London: Cassell, Part 5, Chapter 2, p. 241:
glosses: Inclined to share confidences; (of things) making people inclined to share confidences; involving the sharing of confidences.
examples: text: a confidential agent; a confidential servant; a confidential whisper
text: Now, they want me to send up a confidential person with some writings.
ref: 1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 168:
text: This paper will serve instead of a confidential friend into whose ear I might pour forth the overflowings of my heart.
ref: 1848, Anne Brontë, chapter 18, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, volume 1, London: T.C. Newby, pages 320–321:
text: […] perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson’s Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people;
ref: 1859, Charles Dickens, chapter 3, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book I (Recalled to Life), page 11:
text: I repeated the instruction by letter and I kept a copy of the letter witnessed by my confidential maid.
ref: 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not ..., London: Duckworth, Part 2, Chapter 2, p. 245:
text: “He said he was a confidential messenger,” shouted a man.
ref: 1959, Kurt Vonnegut, chapter 6, in The Sirens of Titan, New York: Dial, published 2006, page 155:
glosses: Having someone's confidence or trust; having a position requiring trust; worthy of being trusted with confidences.
Derived terms: confidential informant
confidentiality
confidentially
confidentialness
nonconfidential
unconfidential
Related terms: confide
confidence