CONFOUNDING • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Confounding

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/kənfˈaʊndɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Confound v. t. (past & past part. confounded; pres. part. confounding)

1.

To mingle and blend, so that different elements can not be distinguished; to confuse. "They who strip not ideas from the marks men use for them, but confound them with words, must have endless dispute." "Let us go down, and there confound their language."

2.

To mistake for another; to identify falsely. "They (the tinkers) were generally vagrants and pilferers, and were often confounded with the gypsies."

3.

To throw into confusion or disorder; to perplex; to strike with amazement; to dismay. "The gods confound... The Athenians both within and out that wall." "They trusted in thee and were not confounded." "So spake the Son of God, and Satan stood A while as mute, confounded what to say."

4.

To destroy; to ruin; to waste. (Obs.) "One man's lust these many lives confounds." "How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour?"

Synonyms: To abash; confuse; baffle; dismay; astonish; defeat; terrify; mix; blend; intermingle. See Abash.

noun

confounding n. A mistake that results from taking one thing to be another.

Synonyms: confusion, mix-up.

adjective

confounding adj. Tending to contradict (a hypothesis).

Synonyms: contradictory.

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Etymology of 'Confounding'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Confounding" Quotes from Famous Books

... to avoid the confusion which arose from thus confounding the cause and effect, that modern chemists adopted the new word caloric, to denote the principle which produces heat; yet they do not always, in compliance with their own language, limit the word heat to the expression of the sensation, since they still frequently ...

— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... and his sarcasm overwhelming. Unusually quick to perceive the weaker parts of an opponent's argument, his ingenuity would seize these and turn them upon him with a point and power not unfrequently confounding and destroying the effect of all he had urged. From Congress to the Gubernatorial chair of the State was the next step in his political career, and it was in this capacity that he rendered the most signal service to the State. As a lawyer, he was well aware of the wants ...

— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... Science, Spirit no more changes its species, by evolving matter from Spirit, than natural science, so-called, or material laws, bring about alteration of species by transforming minerals into vegetables or plants into animals,—thus confusing and confounding the three great kingdoms. No rock brings forth an apple; no pine-tree produces a mammal ...

— Rudimental Divine Science • Mary Baker Eddy

... reasonable character of the proceeding, and not to smile at the first sign of it in his own person. Still, he meant to try, if he could, to keep the two estimates distinct, and neither to confuse himself nor other people by confounding them. It seemed to him an intellectual point of honour to keep his head perfectly cool on the subject of Miss Bretherton's artistic claims, but he was conscious that it was not always very easy to do—a consciousness that made him sometimes ...

— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. ...

— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

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