| 词组 | confidant |
| 释义 | confidant 1. Confidant, confidante. The usage books seem to present only a partial picture of the usage of these words: Fowler 1926 calls confidant masculine and confidante feminine; Copperud 1970, citing other commentators for support, agrees on confidante but says confidant is bisexual. In actual usage, confidant usually refers to a male: • ... had him as a confidant and friend —Gay Talese, Harper's, January 1969 • ... the same detective and his friend and confidant, Dr. Watson —A. C. Ward, British Book News, May 1954 It is also used of females: • ... shows her caliber in permitting Miss Alice Marriott to be her confidant —Elizabeth S. Sergeant, Saturday Rev., 24 July 1948 • She had specialized as the confidant and friend — Osbert Sitwell, Horizon, July 1947 Confidante is usually applied to females: • ... Emma moved from kitchen maid to royal confidante —Charles Lee, Saturday Rev., 12 Mar. 1955 • ... if he would be thoughtful, considerate, and treat her as a partner and confidante —Joseph P. Lash, McCall's, October 1971 But it is also used of males: • ... the minister, assumed to be a confidante of Eisenhower, reported his findings to the President — Current Biography, November 1967 • The informer, Douglass Durham, was the chief aide and confidante —John Kifner, N. Y. Times, 13 Mar. 1975 2. Some handbooks warn us not to confuse confidant and confident. They undoubtedly mean the adjective when they specify confident, and surely no one able to read this book would mistake the noun confidant for the adjective confident. But there is a curious historical sidelight involved. The noun confidant came to English in the 17th century from the French, in which it was spelled confident. The 17th-century English spelling of the word was the same as the French: confident. • WORTHY.... engage her in an intrigue of her own, making yourself her confident —Sir John Vanbrugh, The Relapse, 1696 The OED notes that the spelling with a did not come into use until the 18th century. Confidant and confidante gradually replaced the older spelling—the OED does find a few -ent spellings still in use in the 19th century and we have an example from a distinguished British serial in 1947—and the -a- spellings are the only ones in current use. Another curiosity: confidante is an entirely English word formed on analogy with French. |
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