Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act of confusing or the state of being confused.
- noun An instance of being confused.
- noun Psychology Impaired orientation with respect to time, place, or person; a disturbed mental state.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of confusing or mingling together two or more things or notions properly separate; the act or process of becoming confused or thrown together in disorder, so as to conceal or obliterate original differences, etc.
- noun The state of being confused or mixed together, literally or figuratively; an indiscriminate or disorderly mingling; disorder; tumultuous condition: as, the confusion of the crowd.
- noun The state of having confused or indistinct ideas; lack of clearness of thought.
- noun Perturbation of mind; embarrassment; abashment; trouble; distraction.
- noun Overthrow; destruction; ruin.
- noun One who confuses; a confounder; a troubler.
- noun In civil law, merger of two titles in the same person.
- noun In civil law and Scots law, an extinction of an obligation or servitude by the fact that the two persons whose divided position is requisite for the continuance of a debt become one person, for example, when one becomes the heir of the other.
- noun Synonyms Derangement, jumble, chaos, turmoil.
- noun Perplexity, bewilderment, distraction, mortification.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The state of being mixed or blended so as to produce indistinctness or error; indistinct combination; disorder; tumult.
- noun The state of being abashed or disconcerted; loss self-possession; perturbation; shame.
- noun Overthrow; defeat; ruin.
- noun obsolete One who confuses; a confounder.
- noun (Law) the intermixture of the goods of two or more persons, so that their respective portions can no longer be distinguished.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A lack of
clarity ororder . - noun The state of being
confused ; not understanding.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an act causing a disorderly combination of elements with identities lost and distinctions blended
- noun a mistake that results from taking one thing to be another
- noun a mental state characterized by a lack of clear and orderly thought and behavior
- noun a feeling of embarrassment that leaves you confused
- noun disorder resulting from a failure to behave predictably
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Here, to simplify the discussion, we are using the term confusion in place of unawareness (ignorance), but without any connotation of disorganization, disorientation, or dementia.
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Johnson's divisions, and one from Pickett's corps, flung itself upon it, and drove Crawford's and Ayre's division in confusion from the field for nearly two miles.
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Lieutenant and boat's crew put off in confusion from the sinking vessel, and begged of Commodore Ingraham to cease firing, telling him that the water was already up to the berth-deck, and that they surrendered.
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"I think the name confusion can only help us, right?"
NYT > Home Page By DAVID CARR 2011
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Your confusion is a function of your reliance on simple-minded stereotypes.
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This article demonstrates that a source of this confusion is a misunderstanding of the nature of a conviction and the difference between a fact necessarily decided to establish an element of the crime and an extraneous fact that appears in the record of conviction.
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Anyway, she walks through this circle of standing stones and appears back in 1743 where the first person she sees when she emerges from her confusion is a gentlemen in 18th century army officers 'uniform, who looks just like her husband.
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Your confusion is a function of your reliance on simple-minded stereotypes.
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Adding to her confusion is the revelation that the current film is a remake of a doomed polish production that was never finished due to an unspeakable tragedy …
Inland Empire: Laura Dern: Justin Theroux: David Lynch: DVD: Synopsis | SciFi UK Review 2007
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Adding to her confusion is the revelation that the current film is a remake of a doomed polish production that was never finished due to an unspeakable tragedy …
skipvia commented on the word confusion
A group of weasels
November 16, 2007
whichbe commented on the word confusion
I know someone who claims to have this ability to overwhelmingly confuse and befuddle others. Also sometimes called incomprehensibility.
May 15, 2008
rasdawta commented on the word confusion
this word comes to mind when i think of how to share lists with others on wordie. hmmm....
February 18, 2009
PossibleUnderscore commented on the word confusion
And there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the great cross on the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral, glittering above a red-and-violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From the boy's face one might suppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion of the great, confused city--so golden, so high up, so far out of his reach.
-Charles Dickens Bleak House
Another of my very favourite quotes.
July 26, 2009