confusio

Forms

cōnfūsiō f (genitive cōnfūsiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin cōnfundō (“to pour together, mix, confuse”) + -tiō.^[2][1][3] De Vaan lists cōnfundō under fundō “to pour”, which he traces to Proto-Italic *χund- and Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰu-n-d- (“to pour”), comparing Ancient Greek χέω (khéō, “to pour”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL and Köbler find it first in Cicero,^[3][5] who speaks of a combining of parts.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a mixing or blending and the mixture produced: Seneca says a river is kept from mingling with worse water, and calls the rainbow a mixture of many images of the sun.^[2] Ōris cōnfūsiō is a blush: Tacitus has frequent blushing taken for modesty.^[2] Cicero uses it of the union of the virtues, which philosophers distinguish by reason.^[2] It is also disorder: Cicero writes of such disturbance and confusion of affairs.^[2] Of the mind it is consternation: Velleius asks what alarm there was in the senate and what consternation among the people.^[2] In grammar Terentianus Maurus uses it of crasis, and in law it is the merging of a right in another, as when the holder of a usufruct acquires ownership.^[2] In Church and medieval Latin it is shame, confusion.^[6][7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of the parts of a speech and of confused affairs.^[2][3][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of a mixing of waters and of the rainbow.^[2][5]
• c. 20 BC–30 AD – Velleius of public consternation.^[2][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of blushing.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mingling, mixing; a mixture;^[2][8][1] ōris cōnfūsiō, a blush.^[2][8][1]
2. A combining, union.^[2]
3. Disorder, confusion; uncertainty.^[2][1]
4. A troubled state of mind, consternation, embarrassment.^[2][1]
5. (law) The merging of a right in another.^[2]
6. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Shame.^[6][7]

Related words

• cōnfundō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press