cocksure
Americanadjective
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perfectly sure or certain; completely confident in one's own mind.
She was cocksure that she was able to do the job better than anyone else.
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too certain; overconfident.
He was so cocksure he would win the election that he didn't even bother to campaign.
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Obsolete. perfectly secure or safe.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cocksure
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Burdened by unquenchable ambition, cocksure confidence and immeasurable talent, Whistler was in many ways an outlier of his age, with an inside track to 20th-century modernism.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
And it became famous for Ingle's unconventional training methods which allowed his boxers to become flamboyant and cocksure with fancy footwork.
From BBC ● Jan. 9, 2026
Back at the attorney’s office, I watched Gray’s family and lawyers all moved to tears by Mosby’s words—even famously cocksure defense attorney Billy Murphy!—and her audacious attempt to hold Baltimore police accountable for Gray’s death.
From Slate ● May 24, 2024
As she read her statement in court, gone was the cocksure grin, replaced by sobbing.
From Salon ● Oct. 26, 2023
With Maps of the Country Through Which the Routes Pass, in the Northern, Middle, and Eastern States, a book whose title was as grand and cocksure as the New World it so thrillingly described.
From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
