confundir

Forms

confundir (first-person singular present confundo, first-person singular preterite confundi, past participle confundido)^[1] Houaiss records confundir and confonder in the 13th century and cõfuder in the 14th.^[2] The cantigas mostly have cofonder, also confonder and the subjunctive confunda.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cōnfundō (“to pour together, mix; to confuse”), moved into the -ir conjugation.^[1][2][4] Nascentes calls it a semi-learned word.^[4] The medieval language also had the popular forms Old Galician-Portuguese cofonder and Old Galician-Portuguese confonder, with the -er of the Latin verb, which Houaiss counts as old forms of this verb;^[2][3][5] García de Diego sets the Galician form beside Old Spanish cohonder as the inherited outcomes, and calls Spanish confundir a learned word.^[2][3][5]

The Latin verb is made of con- (“with, together”) and fundō (“to pour”).^[1][6] Christian Latin gave it the sense “to humiliate, cover with shame”, and Medieval Latin also “to rebuke, to destroy”.^[7][8] The same Latin word is French confondre, Catalan confondre and Italian confondere.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century.^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use cofonder for ruin and damnation: a man is told que o matar foste por nos cofonder “that you went to kill him to ruin us”, and whoever leaves the Virgin Deu-lo cofonda “may God confound him”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the cantigas d'escarnho the verb is above all a curse, as in Johan Garcia de Guilhade's Deus me cofonda “God confound me”.^[10][3] The Crónica Troiana uses it for “to vex, afflict” and “to bring to ruin”.^[10] Houaiss still lists “to punish, strike down” and “to ruin” among the senses.^[2]

The dictionaries show the sense of mixing coming forward: Barbosa (1611) defines the verb as mixing one thing with another, Bluteau (1712) as mixing things in disorder.^[11][12] Feijó (1734) sets confundir beside the spelling confondir.^[13] Morais (1789) gives melting or mixing together, putting into disorder, taking one thing for another and overwhelming the soul with fear or awe, and in 1813 adds silencing someone with arguments and shaming him.^[14][15] Today the commonest sense is mistaking one person or thing for another.^[2][1]

Timeline

• 13th century – confundir and confonder; the Cantigas de Santa Maria use cofonder.^[2][10]
• 13th century – first record of confusão, spelt confugyõ.^[16]
• 14th century – the spelling cõfuder.^[2]
• 1513 – the Livro dos Mártires uses the verb.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin obruo and confundo.^[18]
• 1611 – Barbosa defines it as mixing one thing with another.^[11]
• 1734 – Feijó sets confundir beside confondir.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais records “to take one thing for another”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To mix or fuse things so that they can no longer be told apart;^[2][19][1] (pronominal) to blend, merge: As vozes confundiam-se com o barulho da rua.^[2][19][1]
2. To confuse, mistake one person or thing for another: Confundi-o com o irmão.^[2][19][1]
3. To disconcert, perplex; to throw into confusion.^[2][19]
4. To embarrass someone with kindness, attentions or praise.^[2][20]
5. To humiliate, put to shame.^[19][20]
6. (pronominal) To make a mistake, be mistaken.^[2][1]
7. (archaic) To ruin, thwart; to punish, strike down.^[2][1]

Related words

• confuso
• confusão
• fundir
• Spanish confundir

Usage notes

Confundir alhos com bugalhos “to confuse garlic with oak galls” means to mix up quite different things.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. confundir
3. ^ a b c d Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. cofonder
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, 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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. confundō
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. confondre
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. confundere
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c d Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. cofonder
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. confundir
12. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. confundir
13. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. confundir
14. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 309
15. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 444
16. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. confusão
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. confundir
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. confundir
19. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. confundir
20. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. confundir