A study published in May 2022 has left me pondering the difference between being confounded versus being confused.1 Both words are derived from the same Latin verb ‘confundo’, which means “to mix, blend, pour together, disorder, embroil, or confuse.” Confound and confuse should be synonymous with each other. Yet they aren’t, well not exactly. As ‘confundo’ migrated from Latin through the Old French ‘confondre’ to the Anglo-Norman ‘cunfundre’ to the Middle English ‘confounden’, its meaning shifted in subtle ways. Apparently by the 13th century, confound took on a slightly different and harsher meaning, as in “to condemn, curse, or to destroy utterly.”
The past participle of the Latin confundo, ‘confusus’, followed a similar journey over time into French and eventually to English so that by the 14th century it became ‘confuse’ as in ‘to perplex the mind’. By the 1580s confuse meant to ‘treat or regard erroneously as identical.’2
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