▪ identify wrongly; mistake:"a lot of people confuse a stroke with a heart attack"Similarmix upmuddle upconfoundmisinterpret asmistake fortake forOppositedistinguish
Word OriginMiddle 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.