confuse
/kənˈfjuz/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.67 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To puzzle, perplex, baffle, bewilder (somebody); to afflict by being complicated, contradictory, or otherwise difficult to understand.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "People who say "hola" to Italians are confusing Italian with Spanish."
- "Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Saturday questioned Donald Trump’s mental fitness after he appeared to confuse her with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when talking about the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. […] “They’re saying he got confused. That he was talking about something else. That he was talking about Nancy Pelosi. He mentioned me multiples times in that scenario,” the former South Carolina governor added."
- "The dense fog utterly confused traffic on the highway."
Etymology
Back-formation from confused, from Middle English confused (“frustrated, ruined”), from Anglo-Norman confus, from Latin cōnfūsus, past participle of cōnfundō.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kənˈfjuz/
- British English: /kənˈfjuːz/
Usage
Inflected Forms
confuses (present, singular)
confusing (participle, present)
confused (participle, past)
confused (past)
more confuse (comparative)
most confuse (superlative)
Derived Forms
Phrases
leave speechless
throw somebody for a loop
throw somebody a curve
be at a loss for words
to get turned around
get one's wires crossed
have one's wires crossed