confuse
/kənˈfjuːz
/verb [with object]
1Make (someone) bewildered or perplexed: past and present blurred together, confusing her still further...
- If his period of confinement have been very long, the prospect of release bewilders and confuses him.
- It more than confused him, it bewildered him completely.
- They can be extremely effective at distracting and confusing someone on the other side of an argument.
Synonyms
bewilder, baffle, mystify, bemuse, perplex, puzzle, confound, befog, nonplus, disconcert, throw, set someone thinking
informal flummox, discombobulate, faze, stump, beat, fox, make someone scratch their head, floor, fog
North American informal buffalo
archaic wilder, gravel, maze, cause to be at a stand, distract, pose
rare obfuscate
bewildering, baffling, difficult (to understand), unclear, perplexing, puzzling, mystifying, mysterious, disconcerting;
ambiguous, misleading, inconsistent, contradictory;
unaccountable, inexplicable, impenetrable, unfathomable, above one's head, beyond one;
complex, complicated, involved, intricate, convoluted, labyrinthine, Byzantine
archaic wildering
1.1Make (something) more complex or less easy to understand: the points made by the authors confuse rather than clarify the issue...
- But complexity confuses a media that needs a simple plot.
- And you confused it with complexity, which is not a part of the argument at all.
- Campaigners confuse the issue with complex legal and medical argument.
Synonyms
complicate, muddle, jumble, garble, make complex, make (more) difficult, blur, obscure, make unclear, cloud, obfuscate
archaic embroil
1.2Identify wrongly; mistake: a lot of people confuse a stroke with a heart attack purchasers might confuse the two products...
- We won't confuse our having made mistakes with our having no right to be here.
- It is at this point that the issue of moral values tends to be identified, or confused with, religion.
- However, it would be a mistake to confuse sensible with safe.
Synonyms
mix up, muddle up, confound;
misinterpret as, mistake for, take for
Origin
Middle English (in the sense 'rout, bring to ruin'): from Old French confus, from Latin confusus, past participle of confundere 'mingle together' (see confound). Originally all senses of the verb were passive, and therefore appeared only as the past participle confused; the active voice occurred rarely until the 19th century when it began to replace confound.
The early meanings of confuse were ‘rout’ and ‘bring to ruin’. The word comes via French from Latin confundere ‘mingle together, mix up’. Confound (Middle English) comes from the same word.