confound
to throw into confusion or disorder: The revolution confounded the people.
to throw into increased confusion or disorder.
to treat or regard erroneously as identical; mix or associate by mistake: truth confounded with error.
to mingle so that the elements cannot be distinguished or separated.
to damn (used in mild imprecations): Confound it!
to contradict or refute: to confound their arguments.
to put to shame; abash.
Archaic.
to defeat or overthrow.
to bring to ruin or naught.
Obsolete. to spend uselessly; waste.
Origin of confound
1Other words for confound
Other words from confound
- con·found·a·ble, adjective
- con·found·er, noun
- in·ter·con·found, verb (used with object)
- pre·con·found, verb (used with object)
- un·con·found, verb (used with object)
Words Nearby confound
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use confound in a sentence
One thing Kaleido has been careful to demonstrate — and it’s sad to think that this is a differentiator — is that its products work with people whose skin tone and hair confound other solutions.
Kaleido’s Unscreen is dead simple drag-and-drop background removal for video | Devin Coldewey | October 2, 2020 | TechCrunchThat framing puts the wellbeing of business over the wellbeing of people, to already confounding results.
Is the Government Just Going to Watch the Restaurant Industry Die? | Elazar Sontag | August 28, 2020 | EaterWe’ve bought into the fiction that the management structures and systems that confound and constrain us can be amended only by those at the top of the pyramid, or by their appointees in HR, planning, finance, and legal.
Bamboozle is one of those words that has been confounding etymologists for centuries.
Samuel Scarpino, a professor at Northeastern University who studies infectious diseases, said that it can be very difficult, even in a sophisticated model, to separate all of the confounding factors that could be at play, like geography.
Republicans And Democrats See COVID-19 Very Differently. Is That Making People Sick? | Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux | July 23, 2020 | FiveThirtyEight
The increase in recognition of autism spectrum disorders in Western countries continues to confound and confuse.
Patriarchy is powerful, but it is also fragile, and transgender people confound its simple dichotomies.
Southern Baptist Convention: Trans People Don’t Exist | Jay Michaelson | June 12, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTYet, as a whole, the events that transpired between 1900 and 2000 B.C.E. still manage to confound the contemporary imagination.
History Broke Us: One Jewish Family’s 20th Century | James McAuley | November 29, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTHe may be an exception, but his example proves that grace can confound the expectations and machinations of curial politics.
To complicate and confound matters further, North Korea has done more than simply throw grenades.
Leslie H. Gelb: North Korea, U.S. Headed to Brink of War, Unnoticed | Leslie H. Gelb | April 1, 2012 | THE DAILY BEAST“confound it, no;” rejoined Mr. Simmery, stopping for an instant to smash a fly with the ruler.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, v. 2(of 2) | Charles DickensThen confound your slow coaches down here; thats all, said the doctor, walking away.
Oliver Twist, Vol. II (of 3) | Charles DickensWeld is a totally distinct word from woad, but most dictionaries confound them.
Chaucer's Works, Volume 1 (of 7) -- Romaunt of the Rose; Minor Poems | Geoffrey ChaucerThese proverbs remind us of Bacon: "Specious words confound virtue."
Beacon Lights of History, Volume I | John LordWhat has happened between you and the communiers, whom may the pest carry off and hell confound!
The Pilgrim's Shell or Fergan the Quarryman | Eugne Sue
British Dictionary definitions for confound
/ (kənˈfaʊnd) /
to astound or perplex; bewilder
to mix up; confuse
to treat mistakenly as similar to or identical with (one or more other things)
(kɒnˈfaʊnd) to curse or damn (usually as an expletive in the phrase confound it!)
to contradict or refute (an argument, etc)
to rout or defeat (an enemy)
obsolete to waste
Origin of confound
1Derived forms of confound
- confoundable, adjective
- confounder, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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