16 uses
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Definition
to confuse, prove wrong, frustrate, or express frustration
in various senses, including:
confuse or surprise — sometimes specifically to confuse one thing with another
- "confounded by the puzzle" — confused or perplexed
- "Test results confounded the experts." — surprised and confused
- "Do not confound confidence with correctness." — mistake one thing for another
prove wrong, defeat, or frustrate
- "The test results confounded my theory." — proved wrong
- "Their defense confounded our offense." — defeated or frustrated
make worse
- "She confounded the problem by painting without sanding." — made worse
- "The task is complicated by other confounding factors." — making worse
an exclamation expressing anger or frustration
- "Confound it! Will I ever get this thing to work?"
- "I don't understand the confounded directions!"
- I call it a confounded job to take the thing away from Farebrother.Book 2 — Old and Young (60% in)
- Confound you handsome young fellows! you think of having it all your own way in the world.Book 1 — Miss Brooke (54% in)
- "I have contradicted it, sir," Fred answered, with a touch of impatience, not remembering that his uncle did not verbally discriminate contradicting from disproving, though no one was further from confounding the two ideas than old Featherstone, who often wondered that so many fools took his own assertions for proofs.Book 1 — Miss Brooke (90% in)
- Confound John Waule!Book 2 — Old and Young (14% in)
- "Confound their petty politics!" was one of his thoughts for three mornings in the meditative process of shaving, when he had begun to feel that he must really hold a court of conscience on this matter.Book 2 — Old and Young (54% in)
- Confound you, Naumann!Book 2 — Old and Young (66% in)
- If they had been at home, settled at Lowick in ordinary life among their neighbors, the clash would have been less embarrassing: but on a wedding journey, the express object of which is to isolate two people on the ground that they are all the world to each other, the sense of disagreement is, to say the least, confounding and stultifying.Book 2 — Old and Young (78% in)
- Oh, confound it, Harriet!Book 4 — Three Love Problems (23% in)
- "Oh, very well; this confounded rain has hindered me from sketching," said Will, feeling so happy that he affected indifference with delightful ease.Book 4 — Three Love Problems (38% in)
- Confound Casaubon!Book 5 — The Dead Hand (5% in)
- Who would not, when there was the pretext of casting disgrace upon him, confound his whole life and the truths he had espoused, in one heap of obloquy?Book 5 — The Dead Hand (94% in)
- Things went confoundedly with me in New York; those Yankees are cool hands, and a man of gentlemanly feelings has no chance with them.Book 5 — The Dead Hand (97% in)
- Sometimes I'm no better than a confounded tax-paper before the names are filled in.Book 5 — The Dead Hand (99% in)
- "What do you confounded fools mean?" shouted Fred, pursuing the divided group in a zigzag, and cutting right and left with his whip.Book 6 — The Widow and Wife (22% in)
- On the contrary Lydgate was more than hurt—he was utterly confounded that she had risked herself on a strange horse without referring the matter to his wish.Book 6 — The Widow and Wife (47% in)
- Fred had simply snatched up this pretext for speaking, because he could not say, "You are losing confoundedly, and are making everybody stare at you; you had better come away."Book 7 — Two Temptations (38% in)
There are no more uses of "confound" in Middlemarch.
Typical Usage
(best examples)