confound
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /kənˈfaʊnd/
rhymes: -aʊnd
Forms: form: confounds
form: confounding
form: confounded
form: confounded
Etymology: From Middle English confounden (“destroy, ruin, perplex”), from Anglo-Norman cunfundre and Old French confondre, from Latin cōnfundō (“to mingle, mix together”). Related to found (“to melt (metals in a foundry)”) (but not to found (“to start”), nor to find) and to fusion.
Senses: examples: text: And the brother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words.
ref: 1830, Joseph Smith, Jr., Book of Mormon: Ether, i, 34:
text: The fightback when it came was in the [Roger] Federer fashion: unfussy, filled with classy strokes from the back with perfectly timed interventions at the net that confounded his opponent. The third set passed in a bit of a blur, the fourth, which led to the second tie-break, was the most dramatic of the match.
ref: 2012 June 29, Kevin Mitchell, “Roger Federer back from Wimbledon 2012 brink to beat Julien Benneteau”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 15 Nov 2016:
synonyms: puzzle
glosses: To perplex or puzzle.
glosses: To stun or amaze.
examples: 1651 (Latin edition 1642), Thomas Hobbes, De Cive (Latin title) Philosophicall Rudiments Concerning Government and Society (English),
Hey who lesse seriously consider the force of words, doe sometimes confound Law with Counsell, sometimes with Covenant, sometimes with Right. They confound Law with Counsell, who think, that it is the duty of Monarchs not onely to give ear to their Counsellours, but also to obey them, as though it were in vaine to take Counsell, unlesse it were also followed.
synonyms: word: confuse
word: mix up
word: addle
word: baffle
word: lose
word: stick
word: stump
word: baffound
word: bamboozle
word: bedevil
word: befuddle
word: throw
word: bemuse
word: bewilder
word: bumfuzzle
word: complicate
word: confound
word: confuddle
word: confuse
word: confuzzle
word: dazzle
word: discombobulate
word: disconcert
word: dumbfound
word: ferhoodle
word: flabagast
word: flabbergast
word: flabbergaster
word: flurry
word: fluster
word: flummox
word: fuddle
word: jumble
word: knot
word: mix up
word: perplex
word: puzzle
glosses: To fail to see the difference; to mix up; to confuse right and wrong.
examples: text: Don't confound the situation by yelling.
text: While she had obeyed him, smiling sweetly all the time, she had nursed a growing resentment of what she called his "Latin American macho attitude." To confound the problem, his mother, who lived with them on and off, was described by the wife as being as domineering as her son.
ref: 1983, Carol M. Anderson, Susan Stewart, Mastering Resistance: A Practical Guide to Family Therapy:
glosses: To make something worse.
examples: text: There the freſh and ſalt water would meete and be confounded together, […]
ref: 1611, Coryat, Crudities, volume I, page 195:
text: Medication and lifestyle factors significantly confound the association with obesity, for which there are few prospective studies and weak evidence for a directly causal relationship, while the association with traumatic brain injury is potentially confounded by ‘accident proneness’ or physical abuse.
ref: 2018 April 26, Tobias A Rowland, Steven Marwaha, “Epidemiology and risk factors for bipolar disorder”, in Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, volume 8, number 9, →DOI, pages 251–269:
glosses: To combine in a confused fashion; to mingle so as to make the parts indistinguishable.
examples: text: His actions confounded the skeptics.
glosses: To cause to be ashamed; to abash.
examples: text: But God hath choſen the fooliſh things of the woꝛld, to confound the wiſe: and God hath choſen the weake things of the woꝛld, to confound the things which are mighty:
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Corinthians 1:27:
text: O Lord our God ariſe, / Scatter his enemies, / And make them fall: / Confound their politics, / Fruſtrate their knaviſh tricks, / On him our hopes we fix, / O ſave us all.
ref: a. 1745, unknown author, “God Save the King”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, volume 15, page 552:
text: 1848 February 12, John Mitchel, The United Irishman, Letter to Lord Clarendon,
I am now, in order the better to confound your politics, going to give you a true account of the means we intend to use, and of the rules, signs, and pass-words of our new United Irish Society Lodge A. 1.—They are so simple that you will never believe them.
glosses: To defeat, to frustrate, to thwart.
examples: text: Confound you!
text: Confound the lady!
text: "Number 43 is no better, Doctor," said the head-warder, in a slightly reproachful accent, looking in round the corner of my door.
"Confound 43!" I responded from behind the pages of the Australian Sketcher.
ref: 1882, Arthur Conan Doyle, “My Friend the Murderer”, in The Gully of Bluemansdyke and Other Stories:
text: "Confound these bearing reins!" he said to himself; "I thought we should have some mischief soon—master will be sorely vexed;[…]"
ref: [1877], Anna Sewell, “A Strike for Liberty”, in Black Beauty: […], London: Jarrold and Sons, […], →OCLC, part II, page 107:
glosses: To damn (a mild oath).
examples: text: To mortal men, he with his horrid crew / Lay vanquiſht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe / Confounded though immortal: But his doom[…]
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 51–53:
text: Imagine twenty thouſand of them breaking into the midſt of an European Army, confounding the Ranks, overturning the Carriages, battering the Warriors Faces into Mummy, by terrible Yerks from their hinder Hoofs.
ref: 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author’s Veracity. His Design in Publishing this Work. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part IV (A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms), page 345:
glosses: To destroy, ruin, or devastate; to bring to ruination.
Derived terms: baffound
confoundable
confoundation
confounder
confounding factor
confounding variable
confound it
confoundment
deconfound
dumbfound
reconfound
unconfound