The term confidence has a different meaning in statistics , than it has in common use . This often confuses people and is one of the critiques to the concept of confidence intervals : If they are used by other people than statisticians , the term confidence is misleading . There is a difference in meaning between the common usage of the word `` confidence '' and its statistical usage , which is often confusing to the layman , and this is one of the critiques of confidence intervals , namely that in application by non-statisticians , the term `` confidence '' is misleading .