confounded

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /kənˈfaʊndɪd/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Hyphenation: con‧found‧ed

Verb

confounded

simple past and past participle of confound
- 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 124:
  Here Mrs. Higgs paused for a moment, and drew out a huge red pocket-handkerchief, with which her face was for some minutes confounded.

Adjective

confounded (comparative more confounded, superlative most confounded)

Confused, astonished.
- 2017 March 6, “Mark Levin on why Obama may have been spying on Trump; Reps. Gohmert, Meadows detail new health care proposal”, in Fox News‎, retrieved 6 March 2017:
  The media is very confounded right now. They're very confused. They don't know whether to trash themselves, trash their colleagues, or what.
- 2024 September 9, Jennifer Burns, “Book Review: 'Reagan' by Max Boot”, in New York Times‎, archived from the original on 23 September 2024:
  Reagan has famously stumped his chroniclers. His official biographer, Edmund Morris, was so confounded by the assignment that he resorted to fiction, producing a muddled portrait of “Dutch” (Reagan’s longtime nickname) that was blasted by reviewers.
Defeated, thwarted.
Synonyms: beaten, overcome, vanquished; see also Thesaurus:defeated
- 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 50–3:
  Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night
  To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
  Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe
  Confounded though immortal: […]
(colloquial) Extremely bad; very unpleasant; used as an intensifier.
The confounded thing doesn't work.
- 1886, Peter Christen Asbj&oslash￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 177:
  "This is all stuff and nonsense," said the king; "I shall have to go myself, if we are to get this confounded whistle from him."
- 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 202:
  Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.