confound
Americanverb (used with object)
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confounds,
present (3rd person singular)
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confounded,
past participle, past
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confounding
present participle
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to perplex or amaze, especially by a sudden disturbance or surprise; bewilder; confuse.
The complicated directions confounded him.
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to throw into confusion or disorder.
The revolution confounded the people.
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to throw into increased confusion or disorder.
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to treat or regard erroneously as identical; mix or associate by mistake.
truth confounded with error.
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to mingle so that the elements cannot be distinguished or separated.
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to damn (used in mild imprecations).
Confound it!
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to contradict or refute.
to confound their arguments.
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to put to shame; abash.
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Archaic.
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to defeat or overthrow.
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to bring to ruin or naught.
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Obsolete. to spend uselessly; waste.
verb
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to astound or perplex; bewilder
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to mix up; confuse
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to treat mistakenly as similar to or identical with (one or more other things)
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to curse or damn (usually as an expletive in the phrase confound it! )
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to contradict or refute (an argument, etc)
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to rout or defeat (an enemy)
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obsolete to waste
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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confoundernoun
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interconfoundverb (used with object)
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preconfoundverb (used with object)
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unconfoundverb (used with object)
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confoundableadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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confoundsimple
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confoundssimple
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have confoundedperfect
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has confoundedperfect
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am confoundingprogressive
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are confoundingprogressive
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is confoundingprogressive
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have been confoundingperfect progressive
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has been confoundingperfect progressive
Past
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confoundedsimple
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had confoundedperfect
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was confoundingprogressive
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were confoundingprogressive
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had been confoundingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of confound
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English conf(o)unden, from Anglo-French confoundre, from Latin confundere “to mix,” equivalent to con- con- + fundere “to pour”
Explanation
If you have an identical twin, you've probably tried dressing alike so that people confound you with, or mistake you for, one another. You've also probably learned that, unfortunately, this trick doesn’t work on your mom. The verb confound means both "to mistake" and "to confuse." If you decide to treat yourself to a delicious dessert, you might find yourself confounded by the overwhelming number of choices. If you end up ordering the chocolate cake but the waiter brings you chocolate mousse, the waiter has somehow confounded those two options. Another meaning you may come across in literature is "to damn," as in "Confound it! You are the most exasperating person on the planet."
Vocabulary lists containing confound
100 SAT words Beginning with "C"
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"Common Sense," Vocabulary from the pamphlet
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Common Sense
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But adding Alphabet won’t save the Dow from its other shortcomings, and the blue-chip index’s enduring popularity continues to confound me.
From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026
Customs and Border Protection deployed a counterdrone laser on what turned out to be party balloons, showed how they can confound air defenses.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2026
In the last five years alone, a pandemic, an inflation spike and a trade war all appeared out of left field to confound expectations.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 9, 2025
The first is Olympian, polymathic, erudite, antically funny, often beautiful, at times gross, at others incredibly romantic, never afraid to challenge or even confound, and unmistakably worked at.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2025
This tune 1 shall really confound Myrna minx.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
Her dry sense of humor at times confounds those around her.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026
“We found that even after getting rid of these confounds, people still claimed early.”
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 16, 2026
“You're asking people in different age brackets, which confounds the entire thing, right?”
From Salon ● Dec. 4, 2024
That some people return to afflicted areas is just one factor that confounds population mobility models -- in actual fact, people may move between locations, sometimes multiple times.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 3, 2024
It confounds me when people don’t assist or even welcome those on their own team.
From "Salt to the Sea" by Ruta Sepetys
Raw milk’s success confounded me: How had it gained such a foothold in this country, despite regular outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli, and even the discovery of bird flu in Raw Farm’s milk?
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2026
The global energy state of play 100 days into the worst supply shock in modern history has confounded analysts and investors alike.
From Barron's ● Jun. 7, 2026
"When I see some of that footage back, I'm still as confounded as I was even as a 19-year-old," she said.
From BBC ● May 19, 2026
The Fed won broad credit for its novel pandemic response, took a share of the blame for the high prices that followed and confounded predictions by bringing inflation down without a recession.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026
I did well in my classes, especially in math and science, which confounded some of the other kids, since my English was still raw.
From "How Dare the Sun Rise" by Sandra Uwiringiyimana
Cleveland Guardians: Jo Adell didn’t come off the IL, but the addition of the former confounding Angels prospect in an August salary dump has bolstered the Guardians’ outfield — long a problem area.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
For those who know of exorcisms primarily from horror movies, the news of a professional exorcist in the nation’s capital causing drama may have been a bit confounding.
From Slate ● Jun. 8, 2026
“We cannot look at this single liver case in a silo,” Raffat wrote, adding that “such cases do tend to occur on other GLPs as well because of various confounding factors.”
From Barron's ● May 4, 2026
Among the many contentious strongmen who have popped up worldwide in the first decades of the 21st century, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is the most confounding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2026
Smoking is without doubt a significant contributory cause of cancer, lung and heart disease, but there are confounding factors having to do with life-style and environment which partially obscured this fact for some years.
From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
