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.
See Examples For:
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
Delighted at this really "safe" issue, the Deputies rose to support or confute Dr. Pinard.
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
Sometimes they illustrate his thesis; sometimes they confute it.
From Time Magazine Archive
But lest some feature of the case may be left untouched, and that the justice of the decree may be more clearly asserted, I have taken the pains to confute these briefly.
From The Old Yellow Book Source of Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book by Anonymous
Arguably, though, Stone and Kuznick's contention is less readily confuted.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 15, 2013
Those who expressed skepticism when the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. raised the dividend rate on its common stock to $9 were confuted by the Company's earnings for 1923.
From Time Magazine Archive
“So it was; but you can't believe how sorry I felt not to know all the story, that I might have confuted her.”
From The Betrothed From the Italian of Alessandro Manzoni by Manzoni, Alessandro
And they have been often alleged to Flavian* himself, and never have been confuted, no not yet.
From Arguments Of Celsus, Porphyry, And The Emperor Julian, Against The Christians Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix by Taylor, Thomas
The opponents of Government ownership and management have been ruthlessly confuted.
From The Express Companies of the United States A Study of a Public Utility by Benedict, Bert
Macmillan," he wrote, "seemed in his very person to embody the national decay he supposed himself to be confuting.
From Time Magazine Archive
We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of Argument, and very desirous of confuting one another.
From Benjamin Franklin Representative selections, with introduction, bibliograpy, and notes by Jorgenson, Chester E.
It was partly to their success in confuting absurd doctrines that their confidence was due; though the confidence was excessive when it was transferred to the axioms from which they professed to start.
From The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) James Mill by Stephen, Leslie, Sir
It was possible, however, to find evidence supporting or confuting his story.
From Arthur Mervyn Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 by Brown, Charles Brockden
As a matter of fact Franco had several times started to write with the intention of confuting his wife's opinions.
From The Patriot Piccolo Mondo Antico by Fogazzaro, Antonio
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.
