sure adv.
1. a general intensifier, definitely, absolutely.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Trial of Elizabeth Canning in Howell State Trials (1816) 483: After you missed your daughter [...] you took all the means in your power to know what was become of her? —Sure I did, I went to all the agents and places where I could think of, fearing some casualty. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘Dialect of Southeastern Missouri’ in DN II:v 332: sure, adv. Pronounced shore, as ‘shore fine’. | |
| Smoke Bellew Pt 11 🌐 This has the makin’s of a Jim-dandy suburb, an’ it sure looks like it’ll be some popular. | |
| Somewhere in Red Gap 54: The minute I get plumb sure mad I get wily. | |
| Home to Harlem 211: She is sure some wonderful brown. [...] Now I sure does understand why Ray is so scornful of them easy ones. | |
| Sister of the Road (1975) 33: The shacks are hostile, and the railroad dicks will glom you sure, unless you’re lucky. | |
| in Damon Runyon (1992) 39: The guy from Boston sure could handset type: he did a column in forty-three minutes. |
2. as sense 1 but used ironically/dismissively cf. right phr.).
| Hot House 195: ‘I’ll look into it,’ said [Warden] Matthews [...] ‘Sure,’ Silverstein replied. He didn’t believe him. | |
 | Bad Boy 172: One of the others told me to stay where I was while they went to get a gun. Sure. |