2

I observe that the word confidante has circa 3,2001 hits on The New York Times. And I also observe that on the same newspaper the word confident has ca. 148,000 hits.

3,200 seems to me a remarkable number. As is well known, confidante is used only for women, while confident is used both for men and women.

So the question is: Does this represent a persistent tendency to preserve sexism in language? Or are there cases in which confidante is preferable, for whatever reason?

1Searching from other countries could have different results.

Improve this question
14
  • 8
    I'm confident that, in many of those 148,000 hits, the word being used as adjective, not as a noun.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 16:23
  • 2
    If OP has accidentally misspelt the masculine form (which should be confidant), it's General Reference. But since that isn't a valid reason for closevoting, I'm going for Too Localised. FWIW, Google Books has 180 instances of she is my confidant, as against only 280 for he is my confidant, showing that many Anglophones don't bother with the gender-specific spelling anyway.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 17:22
  • 2
    @FumbleFingers I disagree with closing as Too Localized. This is a common mistake made by English Language Learners.
    – user230
    Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 18:17
  • 1
    @FumbleFingers: I agree with snailplane about leaving the question open. Still, I upvoted your comment because I appreciated your research and data.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 18:21
  • 5
    Although English has fiancé and fiancée, blond and blonde, confidant and confidante, divorcé and divorcée, etc., many people use such pairs interchangeably. Others use a single version (blonde, divorcee, etc.) for both genders. So, I don't personally think it is well known, as you put it.
    – user230
    Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 19:53

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
13

These are different words.

Confidante is a noun meaning ‘a person in whom one confides’. Both this, the feminine form, and the masculine form confidant without the feminine -e ending have been borrowed from French, in which language it derives from a participle. English preserves the gender distinction, which is not, I think, particularly sexist: the words are generally used of particular relationships in which it may be significant to distinguish male and female friends. It is, at any rate, no more sexist than the distinction between boyfriend and girlfriend.

Confident is an adjective, meaning ‘sure of oneself’ when used without modification, or sure, trusting of [another]. It is derived directly from Latin. Like other English adjectives, it is not inflected

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.