Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or condition of being cocksure.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun total certainty or greater certainty than circumstances warrant

Etymologies

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Examples

  • His very cocksureness is filched from Darwin’s morality of strength based on the survival of the fittest.

    The Little Lady of the Big House, by Jack London 1916

  • Kissing my mother and padding her bosom, carrying a banal effervescent cocksureness, he kicked his boots to the center of the room, and whisked her up the stairs.

    Carolina Grüber: I Ivan R. 2011

  • In moments where his air of mystery is challenged he loses that cocksureness.

    How Rinse FM, the radio station behind Dizzee Rascal and Katy B, keeps it salty 2011

  • On the surface he was all bluster, bravado and cocksureness.

    He Knew He Was Right Don Ohlmeyer 2011

  • Padding her bosom, carrying around an effervescent cocksureness, he kicked his boots to the center of the room and whisked her up the stairs.

    We Stabbed and a Mighty Scarf Shot Red Ivan R. 2011

  • Kissing my mother and padding her bosom, carrying a banal effervescent cocksureness, he kicked his boots to the center of the room, and whisked her up the stairs.

    Carolina Grüber: I Ivan R. 2011

  • Oh, believe me, I see it very clearly — myself in the heyday and cocksureness of youth, flinging at you, with much energy and little skill, my immature generalisations from science; and you with an elderly beneficence and tolerance, smiling shrewdly and affectionatety upon me, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later I am sure to get through with it all and join you in your broad and placid philosophy.

    The Kempton-Wace Letters 2010

  • We hope he would navigate between the amoral realism of some in his party and the counterproductive cocksureness of the current administration, especially in its first term.

    Not in My Backyard James Taranto 2010

  • For “democracy” or the “democratic spirit” (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper at the first sign of criticism.

    Screwtape on Democracy | Diane Duane's weblog: "Out of Ambit" 2008

  • Perhaps there had been a shade too much cocksureness in the hakim's voice, but he acted faultlessly when he answered.

    In The Time Of Light dj barber 2010

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