Confound definition

kən-found, kŏn-
confounded confounding confounds
See word origin
Frequency:
To fail to distinguish; mix up.

Don't confound fiction and fact.

verb
5
1
To cause to become confused or perplexed.
verb
4
2
To make (something bad) worse.

Do not confound the problem by losing your temper.

verb
1
0
(archaic) To defeat or overthrow (an enemy).
verb
1
0
To mix up or lump together indiscriminately; confuse.
verb
0
0
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To make feel confused; bewilder.
verb
0
0
To damn.
verb
0
0
To confuse; to mix up; to puzzle.
verb
0
0
To fail to see the difference; to mix up; to confuse right and wrong.
verb
0
0
To make something worse.

Don't confound the situation by yelling.

verb
0
0
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To cause to be ashamed; to abash.

His actions confounded the skeptics.

verb
0
0
To defeat, to frustrate, to thwart.
verb
0
0
(dated) To damn (a mild oath).

Confound you!

Confound the lady!

verb
0
0
(archaic) To bring to ruination.
verb
0
0
verb
0
0
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(statistics) A confounding variable.
noun
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0
To confound is defined as to confuse someone, defeat an enemy or foil a plan.

An example of confound is when you ask someone a really tough question.

An example of confound is when you act in a suprising way, leaving friends confused about your behavior.

An example of confound is when you stop a plot to overthrow the government.

verb
0
1
To cause to be ashamed; abash.

An invention that confounded the skeptics.

verb
0
1
Used in mild curses.

Confound you!

verb
0
1
To frustrate or thwart.

Trivial demands that confounded the peace talks.

verb
0
1
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(archaic) To defeat or destroy.
verb
0
1
(archaic) To abash.
verb
0
1

Alternative Forms

Alternative Form of confound - confuscate

Other Word Forms

Noun

Singular:
confound
Plural:
confounds

Origin of confound

  • Middle English confounden from Anglo-Norman confundre from Latin cōnfundere to mix together, confuse com- com- fundere to pour gheu- in Indo-European roots

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • From Anglo-Norman cunfundre, from Old French confondre.

    From Wiktionary

Confound Sentence Examples

  • Many authors confound the year of Rome with the civil year, supposing them both to begin on the 1st of January.

  • I'm guessing I confound you the same way you do me.

  • In order not to confound the innocent with the guilty, Torquemada published a declaration offering grace and pardon to all who presented themselves before the tribunal and avowed their fault.

  • He is, in fact, an instance of the tendency, which has so often been remarked by other nations in the English, to drag in moral distinctions at every turn, and to confound everything which is novel to the experience, unpleasant to the taste, and incomprehensible to the understanding, under the general epithets of wrong, wicked and shocking.

  • The belief that he had not really died, but would return again to confound his foes, was long prevalent, not only in the remoter provinces, but even in Rome itself; and more than one pretender was able to collect a following by assuming the name of the last of the race of Augustus.

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Words near confound in the Dictionary