CONFOUNDING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does confounding mean? 

• CONFOUNDING (adjective)
  The adjective CONFOUNDING has 1 sense:

1. that confounds or contradicts or confuses

  Familiarity information: CONFOUNDING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONFOUNDING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

That confounds or contradicts or confuses

Synonyms:

confounding; contradictory

Similar:

unsupportive (not furnishing support or assistance)

 Context examples 

The authors acknowledge that other confounding factors could explain the associations between artificial light at night and weight gain.

(Sleeping with artificial light at night associated with weight gain in women, National Institutes of Health)

Some of them seized my cake, and carried it piecemeal away; others flew about my head and face, confounding me with the noise, and putting me in the utmost terror of their stings.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Chew emphasized that this suggestion of a benefit from calcium could be due to confounding factors.

(No evidence that calcium increases risk of age-related macular degeneration, National Institutes of Health)

“Speaking professionally, it was admirably done,” cried I, looking in amazement at this man who was forever confounding me with some new phase of his astuteness.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“I told you at the inn in London, I am heavy company for myself, sometimes. I have been a nightmare to myself, just now—must have had one, I think. At odd dull times, nursery tales come up into the memory, unrecognized for what they are. I believe I have been confounding myself with the bad boy who “didn't care”, and became food for lions—a grander kind of going to the dogs, I suppose.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Their prudence, unanimity, unacquaintedness with fear, and their love of their country, would amply supply all defects in the military art. Imagine twenty thousand of them breaking into the midst of an European army, confounding the ranks, overturning the carriages, battering the warriors’ faces into mummy by terrible yerks from their hinder hoofs; for they would well deserve the character given to Augustus, Recalcitrat undique tutus.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)