cock-sureness

These opinions differ widely, but have one attribute in common -- their emphatic "cock-sureness."

Pan-Islam

There is determination, but there is no cock-sureness, no goose-step.

The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 Various

But Mr. Chamberlain himself would have done far better if in his book he had copied the methods and modesty of Fiske at his best—the methods and modesty of such books as Sutherland's "Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct" —and had refrained from taking an attitude of cock-sureness concerning problems which at present no one can more than imperfectly understand.

VIII. The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century 1913

The jaunty cock-sureness of the man had flickered out like the flame of the charred match.

The Yukon Trail A Tale of the North William MacLeod Raine 1912

I like Macaulay none the less because his cock-sureness and loquacity came dangerously near to making him a bore; Dr. Johnson grows in interest when I learn that he found it a continual and almost hopeless struggle to become an early riser, that he feared death, and could drink tea as long as the housekeeper could brew it; that Tennyson was

Stories of Authors, British and American Edwin Watts Chubb 1912

The same disrespect to their elders, the same cock-sureness, and the same careless indifference concerning the effect which their actions might have upon other people -- these were natural and nothing but years and the hard knocks of experience could bring about a change.

Cap'n Warren's Wards Joseph Crosby Lincoln 1907

Macomber had eyes of enthusiasm for his latest acquisition, but some of the cock-sureness had been knocked out of him by the blunt riders.

Wildfire Zane Grey 1905

I asked, feeling a bit restive under the old fellow's cock-sureness.

Ravensdene Court 1899

So I rushed on, when I had got into that training school scrape, with all the cock-sureness of the fool that I was! ...

Jude the Obscure 1896

So I rushed on, when I had got into that training school scrape, with all the cock-sureness of the fool that I was! ...

Jude the Obscure 1894