Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Willing to share personal thoughts, feelings, or secrets; characterized by trustful openness: Describes a person who readily entrusts private or confidential matters to another, often implying a sense of trust and vulnerability.

Usage

• The adjective "confiding" describes a person's character or temporary state when they are inclined to share private information. It often modifies nouns like "tone," "manner," "nature," or "person."
• It is typically used in contexts involving personal conversation, friendship, or therapeutic relationships where trust is established.

Examples

• Adjective:
  • She spoke in a confiding whisper, telling me her deepest fears.
  • His confiding nature made him easy to talk to, but sometimes led him to trust the wrong people.
  • The diary entries became more confiding as the writer grew older.

Advanced Usage

• "in a confiding tone/manner": Used to describe the way something is said or done, indicating it invites or expresses trust.
  • He leaned in and spoke in a confiding manner about the company's future plans.

Variants and Related Words

• Confide (verb): To tell someone a secret or private matter while trusting them not to repeat it.
  • She confided her worries to her best friend.
• Confidant/Confidante (noun): A person in whom one confides.
  • He was her closest confidant.
• Confidence (noun): The feeling or belief that one can rely on someone; trust. Also, a secret or private matter told to someone under trust.
  • She took me into her confidence.
• Confidential (adjective): Intended to be kept secret; private.
  • This is confidential information.

Synonyms

• Trusting: Having or showing reliance on someone's integrity or ability.
• Open: Communicative and frank; not secretive.
• Candid: Truthful and straightforward; frank.

Antonyms

• Secretive: Inclined to conceal feelings and intentions or to hide information.
• Reserved: Slow to reveal emotions or opinions.
• Distrustful: Feeling or showing distrust.

Related Phrases

• To be confiding in someone: The act of sharing confidences with a specific person. (Note: This uses the verb "confide" with the preposition "in.")
  • She has been confiding in her therapist for months.

Adjective

1. willing to entrust personal matters
   • first she was suspicious, then she became confiding