Supercilious vs Cocksure - What's the difference?
supercilious | cocksure |
Arrogantly superior; showing contemptuous indifference; haughty.
* 2013 May 23, , "
*
(informal) too confident; overconfident
* 1906 , John Galsworthy,
*1920 , Sinclair Lewis, The Main Street ,
*:These crack specialists, the young scientific fellows, they're so cocksure and so wrapped up in their laboratories that they miss the human element.
As adjectives the difference between supercilious and cocksure
is that supercilious is arrogantly superior; showing contemptuous indifference; haughty while cocksure is too confident; overconfident.supercilious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party," New York Times (retrieved 29 May 2013):
- Buffeted by criticism of his policy on Europe, battered by rebellion in the ranks over his bill to legalize same-sex marriage and wounded by the perception that he is supercilious , contemptuous and out of touch with mainstream Conservatism, Mr. Cameron earlier this week took the highly unusual step of sending a mass e-mail (or, as he called it, “a personal note”) to his party’s grass-roots members.
- Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.
Synonyms
* See alsoDerived terms
* superciliously * superciliousnesscocksure
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- I thought myself cocksure of the horse which he readily promised me. — Alexander Pope.
- The persistence of the Past is one of those tragicomic blessings which each new age denies, coming cocksure on to the stage to mouth its claim to a perfect novelty.