Verb

(en verb)

To confuse; to mix up; to puzzle.

*{{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=June 29 , author=Kevin Mitchell , title=Roger Federer back from Wimbledon 2012 brink to beat Julien Benneteau , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage=The fightback when it came was in the Federer fashion: unfussy, filled with classy strokes from the back with perfectly timed interventions at the net that confounded his opponent. The third set passed in a bit of a blur, the fourth, which led to the second tie-break, was the most dramatic of the match. }}

* 1830 , , i, 34,

And the brother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words.

To fail to see the difference; to mix up; to confuse right and wrong.

* 1651 (Latin edition 1642), ,

Hey who lesse seriously consider the force of words, doe sometimes confound' Law with Counsell, sometimes with Covenant, sometimes with Right. They ' confound Law with Counsell, who think, that it is the duty of Monarchs not onely to give ear to their Counsellours, but also to obey them, as though it were in vaine to take Counsell, unlesse it were also followed.

To make something worse.

Don't confound the situation by yelling.

* 1983 , Carol M. Anderson, Susan Stewart, Mastering Resistance: A Practical Guide to Family Therapy ,

While she had obeyed him, smiling sweetly all the time, she had nursed a growing resentment of what she called his "Latin American macho attitude." To confound the problem, his mother, who lived with them on and off, was described by the wife as being as domineering as her son.

To cause to be ashamed; to abash.

His actions confounded the skeptics.

To defeat, to frustrate, to thwart.

* 1769 , King James Bible, Oxford Standard text, , i, 27,

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound' the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to ' confound the things which are mighty;

* Traditional, date and author unknown, ,

O Lord, our God, arise, / Scatter thine enemies, / And make them fall / Confound their politics, / Frustrate their knavish tricks, / On thee our hopes we fix: / God save us all.

* 1848 February 12, ,

I am now, in order the better to confound your politics, going to give you a true account of the means we intend to use, and of the rules, signs, and pass-words of our new United Irish Society Lodge A. 1.—They are so simple that you will never believe them.

(dated) To damn (a mild oath ).

Confound you!

Confound the lady!

* 1882 , '' in ''The Gully of Bluemansdyke and Other Stories ,

"Number 43 is no better, Doctor," said the head-warder, in a slightly reproachful accent, looking in round the corner of my door.

"Confound 43!" I responded from behind the pages of the Australian Sketcher .

*1877 , (Anna Sewell), (Black Beauty) Chapter 23[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Black_Beauty/23]

*:"Confound these bearing reins!" he said to himself; "I thought we should have some mischief soon—master will be sorely vexed;

(archaic) To bring to ruination.

To stun, amaze

Verb

(muddl)

To mix together, to mix up; to confuse.

Young children tend to muddle their words.

To mash slightly for use in a cocktail.

He muddled the mint sprigs in the bottom of the glass.

To dabble in mud.

(Jonathan Swift)

To make turbid or muddy.

* L'Estrange

He did ill to muddle the water.

To think and act in a confused, aimless way.

To cloud or stupefy; to render stupid with liquor; to intoxicate partially.

* Bentley

Their old master Epicurus seems to have had his brains so muddled and confounded with them, that he scarce ever kept in the right way.

* Arbuthnot

often drunk, always muddled

To waste or misuse, as one does who is stupid or intoxicated.

* Hazlitt

They muddle it [money] away without method or object, and without having anything to show for it.