Confuse: Mixing Things Up, in the Mind or on the Page
To confuse is to make someone unable to think clearly, or to mistake one thing for another. The Latin root means to pour together, which is exactly what happens.
Confuse has two jobs. One is about a person: to confuse someone is to leave them unable to think straight. The other is about two things: to confuse A with B is to mistake one for the other, and the second sense causes far more trouble in writing than the first.
- To bewilder someone. *The instructions confused everyone.*
- To mistake one thing for another. *Do not confuse cause with correlation.*
- To make unclear. *That only confuses the issue.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verb | confuse | You are confusing me. |
| Adjective | confused | A confused account. |
| Adjective | confusing | A confusing sign. |
| Noun | confusion | Widespread confusion. |
| Related | conflate | Do not conflate the two. |
How it is used in a sentence
- People often confuse the two brothers.Mistaking one for the other.
- I am confused by the timetable.Confused describes the person.
- The timetable is confusing.Confusing describes the cause — the same -ed and -ing rule as bored and boring.
Confuse, conflate and confound
- Confuse — mistake one thing for another, or bewilder someone
- Conflate — deliberately or carelessly merge two ideas into one
- Confound — bewilder utterly; in statistics, to mix up two causes
- Muddle — informal, and suggests carelessness rather than difficulty
- A confounding variable in a study is one that makes two causes impossible to separate
From Latin *confundere*, to pour together, from *com* and *fundere*, to pour. The image is exact: two liquids poured into one vessel cannot afterwards be told apart, which is what confusion does to ideas.
Confused with or confused by?
Confused with means mistaken for. Confused by means bewildered by. *He was confused with his brother* and *he was confused by his brother* mean very different things.
Confuse or conflate?
Conflate means to merge two things into one idea. Confuse means to mix them up by mistake.