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confounding

[kon-found, kuhn-; for 6 usually kon-found]

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verb (used with object)

to perplex or amaze, especially by a sudden disturbance or surprise; bewilder; confuse: The complicated directions confounded him.

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.

EXPAND

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.

10.

Obsolete. to spend uselessly; waste.

COLLAPSE

Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English conf(o)unden < Anglo-French confoundre < Latin confundere to mix, equivalent to con- con- + fundere to pour

Related forms

con·found·a·ble, adjective

con·found·er, noun

con·found·ing·ly, adverb

in·ter·con·found, verb (used with object)

pre·con·found, verb (used with object)

EXPAND

un·con·found, verb (used with object)

un·con·found·ing, adjective

un·con·found·ing·ly, adverb

COLLAPSE

Synonyms
1. dumbfound, daze, nonplus, astound.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Confounding is always a great word to know.

So is callithumpian. Does it mean:

a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.

a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

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Example Sentences

It is intense and exhilarating, if a little confounding.

The confounding overlay is that all of these ideas and approaches borrow from a business model.

There are too many confounding factors, and too few school shootings, thank heavens.

EXPAND

It is intense and exhilarating, if a little confounding.

The confounding overlay is that all of these ideas and approaches borrow from a business model.

There are too many confounding factors, and too few school shootings, thank heavens.

Malaria is a confounding disease-often, it seems, contradictory to logic.

Combining the two instruments' data will help isolate the confounding effects of atmospheric dust.

It accounted for the potentially confounding effect of seasonal variation in hospital admissions.

Yet, more studies than ever before appear to be in progress, and they are confirming some preconceptions and confounding others.

To screen out the confounding effects of cosmic rays, though, such experiments are best located.

Subdivision streets often twirl back on themselves or dead-end, confounding even the best sense of direction.

There are so many confounding factors that influence the results.

It is also one of the more confounding and confusing shows, though it manages to make good use of these liabilities.

Cultural complexities are confounding and tastes are extraordinarily fluid.

The model offers no way to explain the moon's confounding dearth of iron.

But for some confounding reason the central nervous system--the brain and spinal cord--remained untouched.

Let's start with that confounding multipiece puzzle of modern life: the local salad bar.

Since then, a whirl of confounding claims and counter-claims has emerged.

Moreover there are simply too many more likely confounding factors.

Confounding all estimates of geriatric malnutrition is a lack of knowledge about the true dietary needs of the elderly.

Unfortunately, other confounding factors make this difficult.

There is nothing atheistic about evolution, you are confounding religion with science.

The story is simply too long and too confounding to be told in a hurry.

But from another vantage-point the euro area is confounding the sceptics and doing remarkably well.

One problem with research of this kind is the difficulty involved in controlling potential confounding variables.

Gonzalez, whose agency has long been criticized as a slow and confounding bureaucracy.

The notion is rather confounding and, quite possibly, wrong.

By definition you are biasing and confounding effects by not having valid control groups.

But taken another way, it is perhaps even more confounding.

But the relationship seems so clear to me, it is absolutely confounding how people can miss it.

Reactance can explain a lot of confounding behavior.

Oftentimes they long outlive their original intent, confounding generation after generation seeking.

It has worked out well so far, confounding the sceptics.

There is a culture of confounding the country with who is in the charge of the government.

College presidents contend that their hands are tied by confounding economic forces.

It may be that there are confounding factors that mean that investor's interests diverge from broader economic interests.

So, they did the opposite, they made sure that every confounding factor is present at every time of day and every swimming test.

But also highly anticipated, making the scope of some of the bets and the fund's lack of controls around it confounding.

The other half may be attributed to unknown variables, confounding variables or inherent variability.

Presidential candidates are confounding a party accustomed to taking pride in its foreign policy.

There the confounding oxymoron of being both rather primitive yet extremely complicated.

And was the first person to link a confounding experiemental result to a theory of atoms.

COLLAPSE

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

confound

late 13c., "discomfit, abash, confuse," from Anglo-Fr. confoundre, from O.Fr. confondre (12c.), from L. confundere "to confuse," lit. "to pour together, mix, mingle," from com- "together" + fundere "to pour" (see found (2)). The figurative sense of "confuse, fail to distinguish,

EXPAND

mix up" emerged in Latin, passed into French and thence into M.E., where it is mostly found in Scripture; the sense of "destroy utterly" is recorded in English from c.1300. The L. pp. confusus, meanwhile, became confused (q.v.).

COLLAPSE

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"Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles: it is an act quite easy to be contemplated, but in its sequel, it turns out to be a horrible jangle and confounding of all relations."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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