confundir

Forms

confundir (first-person singular present confundo, first-person singular preterite confundí, past participle confundido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish cofonder, inherited from Latin cōnfundō (“to pour together, mix; to confuse”).^[2][3][4] Corominas treats the Cid's form, confonder in Berceo and the modern form, first found in Juan de Mena, as one verb, which in the Middle Ages meant “to ruin, destroy”.^[2] García de Diego and Wiktionary instead treat the modern verb as a learned word and the obsolete cohonder as the popular outcome of the Latin verb.^[5][1] The DLE lists the old verb separately, in the senses “to confound” and “to stain, corrupt, revile”.^[6]

The Latin verb gave Catalan confondre, Old Occitan cofondre and French confondre, and Galician had cofonder. Italian confondere and Portuguese confundir are learned.^[7][5] In Christian Latin the verb had come to mean “to humble, put to shame”.^[8]

That verb is formed from Latin con- (“together”) + fundō (“to pour”).^[1][9] Wiktionary traces the simple verb to the root Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰew-d- (“to pour”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) the verb is a curse: when Bucar offers friendship, the Cid answers ¡Cofonda Dios tal amistad! “May God confound such friendship!”^[10][2] The same formula, Dios te coffonda, closes an oath in the Fuero de Cáceres, the first record in a text without a later copy.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The medieval senses were “to destroy, ruin” and “to humble, put to shame”.^[2][11] Alfonso X's General Estoria already uses it of the tongues mixed at Babel, so that people no longer understood one another.^[12] Alonso de Palencia (1490) speaks of Babel donde diuinalmente fueron confundidas las lenguas “where the tongues were divinely confounded”, and Nebrija glossed the verb with Latin misceo “to mix”.^[11][13] The adjective confuso, first a mere participle in Berceo, became an adjective in the 15th century.^[2]

Covarrubias explained the verb as to disturb or mix, like pouring one liquid into another, and the reflexive as being left without an answer.^[14] Autoridades gave the mixing of liquids or ingredients so that they cannot be separated, the mistaking of names and facts, and the throwing of an enemy into disorder.^[15] The Academy's 1884 dictionary added the senses of defeating someone in argument and humbling them.^[16] In Honduras and Nicaragua confundir el caldo con los frijoles means to mix up unrelated matters.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has cofonder.^[2][10]
• c. 1230 – Berceo has confonder (in an 18th-century copy).^[2][10]
• c. 1234–1275 – the Fuero de Cáceres has the curse Dios te coffonda.^[10]
• c. 1235 – the Fuero de Alcalá has the form confundiere.^[10]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses it of the confusion of tongues.^[12]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario has confundidas las lenguas.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it with Latin confundo and misceo.^[13]
• 1546 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it by the mixing of liquids.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin confundere.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, usually pronominal) To mix different things so that they can no longer be told apart: Los colores se confundían con la niebla.^[4]
2. (transitive, also pronominal) To bewilder or disconcert someone: Sus preguntas confundieron al testigo.^[4][1]
3. (transitive, also pronominal) To mistake one thing for another; to get something wrong: Me confundí de autobús.^[4][1]
4. (transitive) To leave someone without an answer in an argument.^[4][16]
5. (transitive, rare) To humble, abase or shame someone.^[4]

Related words

• confusión
• confuso
• cohonder
• fundir
• difundir
• infundir
• Latin cōnfundō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 976
3. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fundir
4. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. confundir
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. confundere
6. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. cohonder
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
11. ^ a b c Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 754
12. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. confundir
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 316
14. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 501
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 507
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 275
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. confundir
18. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. confundir