certainty

[ sur-tn-tee ]

noun

, plural cer·tain·ties.

1. the state of being certain.

   Synonyms: confidence, assurance, certitude

2. something certain; an assured fact.

   Synonyms: truth

certainty

/ ˈsɜːtəntɪ /

noun

1. the condition of being certain
2. something established as certain or inevitable
3. for a certainty
   without doubt

Other Words From

• non·certain·ty noun plural noncertainties

Word History and Origins

Origin of certainty¹

1250–1300; Middle English certeinte < Anglo-French, equivalent to certein certain + -te -ty ²

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. for / of a certainty, certainly; without a doubt:

   I suspect it, but I don't know it for a certainty.

Synonym Study

See belief.

Example Sentences

It’s time to establish the regulatory certainty to extract and trade space resources.

From MIT Technology Review

“It’s time for regulatory certainty to extract and trade space resources,” Bridenstine said in a tweet.

From Fortune

There are simply too many factors for anyone to offer certainty.

From Quartz

Although we noted that a 60-game season wouldn’t offer much less certainty than a 162-game campaign usually does, it’s also true that a sample of 60 games can be unrepresentative of how good a team actually is.

From FiveThirtyEight

When your opponent played rock or paper with equal probability, you knew with certainty they wouldn’t play scissors, and that meant if you played paper you couldn’t lose.

From FiveThirtyEight

Absent a body, no one can say with absolute certainty whether Castro is dead, even if all signs point in that direction.

From The Daily Beast

It is a near certainty that jailed gays and lesbians face horrifying violence in prison.

From The Daily Beast

And he says that with something he does share with Christopher—a tone of absolute, self-assured certainty.

From The Daily Beast

He criticized rather than praised the merits of powerful government, but he did so with unequivocal certainty.

From The Daily Beast

Kundera sees fiction as a realm of many partial truths, its only certainty “the wisdom of uncertainty.”

From The Daily Beast

It's a certainty that they will be captured if they spend that money at any trading-post within our jurisdiction.

From Project Gutenberg

I wouldn't part for a second with the certainty that I am the biggest figure in young England to-day.

From Project Gutenberg

When an article is written, the financial reward (and we may as well live as not) is a matter of certainty.

From Project Gutenberg

The length of the fibre, moreover, cannot be determined with any absolute certainty from the thickness of the vein.

From Project Gutenberg

It was not my good fortune to be allowed to follow up my plans, which almost warranted a certainty of success.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• confidence
• inevitability
• trust