cocksure
adjective

1 : feeling perfect assurance sometimes on inadequate grounds
2 : marked by overconfidence or presumptuousness

Merriam-Webster

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ORIGIN

It is rather ironic that this is one of those terms the origin of which we are far from cock-sure about. One point of certainty - it is old. Robert Whittington, mentions it as early as 1520 in his grammatical tract Vulgaria:

“I haue knowen a man or nowe that thought him selfe cocke sure of his intent.”

The word was originally perfectly dignified, and according to the Oxford English Dictionary “was habitually used in the most solemn connexions”. D.H. Lawrence playfully coined “hensure” as a female version in 1929.

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The four words sure, certain, positive, and cocksure all mean having no doubt or uncertainty, there are subtle meanings though:

- SURE usually stresses the subjective or intuitive feeling of assurance (I felt sure that I had forgotten something).

- CERTAIN may apply to a basing of a conclusion or conviction on definite grounds or clear evidence (Police are certain about the cause of the fire)

- POSITIVE intensifies sureness or certainty and may imply opinionated conviction or forceful expression of it (I’m positive that’s the person I saw).

- COCKSURE implies careless positiveness (He’s always so cocksure about everything ).

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SYNONYMS

excessively confident, brash, cocky, conceited, hubristic, presumptuous, smug, madcap, overbearing, swaggering, rash, riding for a fall, full of oneself, heading for a fall, pompous, pretentious, presumptuous, brazen, egotistical, boastful, toplofty, high-and-mighty, vainglorious, vain, self-opinionated, full of oneself, puffed up, bragging, narcissistic, egocentric, pontifical, self-promoting, self-engrossed, self-congratulatory, self-adulatory, self-glorifying

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Other common cocky phrases are:

- cockcrow = Hahnenschrei
- to cock a snook at sb = jdm. eine lange Nase machen
- to cock a gun = ein Gewehr spannen
- cock an ear = die Ohren spitzen
- cock of the walk = Hauptperson, der Größte, das Alphatier
- cock and bull story = Lügenmärchen, Räubergeschichte
- to cock up = bei etw. Mist bauen, etw. versauen
- go off at half cock = mit halber Kraft
- Wotcher cock! (Cockney version of ‘Hello’)

and my personal favourite, demonstrating that German and US/UK speak different languages:

- cock-a-doodle-doo = Kikeriki

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Paul Smith