611: confuse Aug 10, 2016

Although for someone with a good eye for these things, words like 'confused' are clearly latinate, as most words with 'con-' or 'com-' are. Nevertheless, just that would not indicate the history and evolution of the meaning of the word, at least not necessarily. In Middle English 'confused meant 'bring to ruin’): ultimately from the Latin past participle of 'confundere' meaning 'to mingle together’. At its start, all of its senses were passive, and therefore appeared only as the past participle, 'confused'; for the active sense, people would use the word 'confound'. Only in the 19th century did confuse gain the active sense, and became far more common than confound .