confide
Americanverb (used without object)
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to impart secrets trustfully; discuss private matters or problems (usually followed byin ).
She confides in no one but her husband.
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to have full trust; have faith.
They confided in their own ability.
verb (used with object)
verb
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to disclose (secret or personal matters) in confidence (to); reveal in private (to)
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to have complete trust
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(tr) to entrust into another's keeping
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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confidesimple
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confidessimple
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have confidedperfect
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has confidedperfect
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am confidingprogressive
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are confidingprogressive
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is confidingprogressive
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have been confidingperfect progressive
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has been confidingperfect progressive
Past
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confidedsimple
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had confidedperfect
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was confidingprogressive
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were confidingprogressive
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had been confidingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of confide
First recorded in 1625–35; from Latin confīdere, from con- con- + fīdere “to trust” (akin to fidēs “faith, trust”; see fidelity)
Explanation
To confide in someone is to tell them something privately. We confide in people we trust. We all have secrets and subjects that are hard to talk about. When we want to talk about something sensitive, we look for someone to confide in: a person we trust not to blab about our business to the rest of the world. Most people confide in close friends or family, often to get advice. If you tell someone a secret, and then they tell ten of their friends, you made a mistake by confiding in that person.
Vocabulary lists containing confide
"Of Mice and Men"
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List 15
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Bronx Masquerade
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
When I began to confide in married girlfriends about our problems, they unfailingly shared their own marital struggles, things they’d never mentioned when I was single.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026
It might be tempting to confide in colleagues that you’re having a hard time connecting with your manager, but that probably isn’t a good idea, Williams says.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 28, 2026
And you confide more because you know your fellow travelers—the friend who had to struggle with professional disappointments she now understands are final, or with personal ones that cannot be changed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 26, 2025
Wright told reporters that Beam was “someone I could confide in, someone that I love dearly.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 17, 2025
Pieret urged the portrait’s thief not to sell the painting but to confide in the Paris-Journal.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
In Naiguata, a small coastal town famous for its traditional "dancing devils" festival, Cesar Rendon, 49, a former inmate who lived in the town's halfway house, confides that he "unburdened himself" with Apostol.
From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026
She confides her joy in working there and also tells John that he was abandoned as a baby on the steps of the store.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
In September, she apparently confides to Stern: "Just spoke to Jeffrey. I told him we are working on everything. Wow it is so so demoralising. I am about to freak with exhaustion."
From BBC ● Feb. 11, 2026
In a follow-up Zoom call from his home in Amsterdam, he confides that he almost felt like giving up, but figured maybe a change of scenery was what he needed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 30, 2026
He confides in her that he is going to propose to Jo Bonger, even though “it’s true that I don’t know her well enough to be able to tell you much about her.”
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
Despite being incredibly upset, Emma did not report the doctor to police and instead confided in her husband.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
Afterward, the claim says, she confided in a friend, a retired firefighter, who reported the incident to law enforcement.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2026
After all his travels, he has confided that his favourite place remains Richmond, an affluent and leafy suburb in southwest London.
From Barron's ● May 6, 2026
This sense of history, Freidenberg confided to her diary, “has always spoken in me with great force. Therein lay my certain faith.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
“I’m here alone,” the woman confided after a moment.
From "Genuine Fraud" by E. Lockhart
That debate is now coming for the AI companies that power the chatbots to which people are confiding the most intimate details of their private thoughts and lives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
They were comfortable confiding in one another to the point of calling the war “already a lost cause for Germany,” as Kiep put it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 19, 2025
It’s confiding in a friend because you think they’ll support you.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2024
It was the best part of a couple of years ago, and a senior government figure was confiding in me about listening in on a call between the then prime minister and President Biden.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2024
She wondered whether she had made a terrible mistake by confiding in her cousin—Cecilia would hardly be pleased if excitable Lola started flaunting her knowledge of Robbie’s note.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.