Contextualizebeta

confuse

verb
/kənˈfjuːz/

Etymology

Back-formation from confused, from Middle English confused (“frustrated, ruined”), from Anglo-Norman confus, from Latin cōnfūsus, past participle of cōnfundō.

  1. derived from cōnfūsus
  2. derived from confus
  3. derived from confused

Definitions

  1. to puzzle, perplex, baffle, bewilder (somebody)

    to puzzle, perplex, baffle, bewilder (somebody); to afflict by being complicated, contradictory, or otherwise difficult to understand

    • It confused me when I went to the office and nobody was there, but then I realised it was Sunday.
    • "What confuses me is how other insurance companies knew about it," said Zhang, a 26-year-old government employee from Shandong.
    • President Donald Trump’s offer to most federal employees to resign now and be paid through September stunned the workers who received it – angering some, confusing many and raising questions about whether the offer is even legal.

  2. To mix up, muddle up (one thing with another)

    To mix up, muddle up (one thing with another); to mistake (one thing for another).

    • People who say "hola" to Italians are confusing Italian with Spanish.

  3. To mix thoroughly

    To mix thoroughly; to confound; to disorder.

    • The dense fog utterly confused traffic on the highway.
  4. ›+ 4 more definitions

    1. To make uneasy and ashamed

      To make uneasy and ashamed; to embarrass.

    2. To rout

      To rout; discomfit.

    3. To be confused.

    4. Synonym of confused.

      • Moꝛe ouer take away oꝛdre from all thynges / what ſhulde than remayne? certes nothynge finally / except ſome man wolde imagine eftſones / Chaos: whiche of ſome is expounde a cõfuse mixture: […]
      • The 11. article is ſo confuſe that it is harde to bring it into any certeine numbre of demandes.
      • [T]he moſt laudable languages are alwaies moſt plaine and diſtinct, and the barbarous moſt confuſe and indiſtinct: […]

The neighborhood

Derived

confuddle, confusability, confusable, confusement, confuser, confusible, confusopoly, confuzzle, coonfuse, deconfuse, reconfuse, unconfuse

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at confuse. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01confuse02bewilder03puzzle04mystified05puzzled06perplexed07confused

A definitional loop anchored at confuse. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at confuse

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA