confute
Americanverb (used with object)
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to prove to be false, invalid, or defective; disprove.
to confute an argument.
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to prove (a person) to be wrong by argument or proof.
to confute one's opponent.
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Obsolete. to bring to naught; confound.
verb
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to prove (a person or thing) wrong, invalid, or mistaken; disprove
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obsolete to put an end to
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of confute
1520–30; < Latin confūtāre to abash, silence, refute, equivalent to con- con- + -fūtāre; cf. refute
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.
Sometimes they illustrate his thesis; sometimes they confute it.
From Time Magazine Archive
Healthy, vigorous and solvent, they confute the view that old age, as William Butler Yeats put it, is nothing but a tattered coat upon a stick.
From Time Magazine Archive
As head of the Government I wish once and for all to confute this miserable lie.
From Time Magazine Archive
Now comes the "mediator" trying to keep peace between many power centers and "the Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute."
From Time Magazine Archive
There must be hundreds of instances to confute him, only for the moment she could not remember any of them.
From The Turnstile by Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
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.
