confuse

confuse — verb

1. to cause someone to feel mentally unclear, so they cannot understand what is hap

1.verbtransitiveB1
Definition

to cause someone to feel mentally unclear, so they cannot understand what is happening or what they are being told, or to make a topic seem more complicated than it really is.

Example

The sudden change in the train schedule confused many passengers waiting on the platform.

confuse + direct object (person)

The instructions for assembling the bookshelf were so confusing that Lotte had to ask for help.

confusing as participle adjective

Common collocations
  • completely confused
  • totally confused
  • confuse the issue
  • confuse matters
Synonyms
  • bewilder

    stronger feeling of being lost or overwhelmed; less common in everyday speech

  • perplex

    more formal; suggests the person is actively trying to figure something out

  • baffle

    suggests complete inability to understand, stronger than confuse

Antonyms
  • clarify

    to make something clear and understandable

Grammar Patterns

confuse [noun]

be confused about [noun]

be confused by [noun]

Usage Note

Frequently passive. The adjective confusing describes something that causes confusion, while confused describes a person's mental state.

Common Mistakes

I am confusing about the instructions.
I am confused about the instructions.
'confusing' describes something that causes confusion, not a person's feeling.

2. to mistakenly believe that one person, thing, or idea is another person, thing,

2.verbtransitiveB1
Definition

to mistakenly believe that one person, thing, or idea is another person, thing, or idea because they look alike, sound alike, or seem similar.

Example

I always confuse the twins because they dress exactly the same way.

confuse [noun] — mixing up similar people

Many students confuse the word 'affect' with the word 'effect' when writing essays.

confuse A with B pattern

Common collocations
  • easily confused
  • confuse one with another
  • confuse the names
  • confuse dates and times
Synonyms
  • mix up

    more informal, very common in everyday English

  • muddle

    more common in British English; can also mean to jumble physically

Antonyms

Grammar Patterns

confuse [noun] with [noun]

confuse [noun] and [noun]

Usage Note

Use the pattern confuse A with B or confuse A and B when naming the two items being mixed up. The passive be confused with is common in medical and technical contexts.

Common Mistakes

I always confuse about the twins.
I always confuse the twins.' or 'I always confuse one twin with the other.
'confuse' is transitive and needs a direct object; 'confuse about' is incorrect.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

All four words describe difficulty in understanding, but they differ in intensity. Confuse is the most general and everyday term — it indicates mild to moderate mental unclarity, as in a confusing instruction manual. Bewilder adds a sense of being lost or disoriented, as when someone faces a completely unfamiliar situation. Perplex is more formal and implies an active struggle to solve a puzzle or contradiction — a person who is perplexed is trying to figure something out. Baffle is the strongest, suggesting that no understanding is possible at all, like a mystery that cannot be solved. In everyday speech, confuse covers most situations; the others are used when you want to emphasise a stronger or more specific kind of confusion.

confuse ↗bewilder ↗perplexbaffle ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • issue
  • matters
  • names
  • dates
  • identities

Adverbs

Phrases

  • confuse the issue
  • confuse matters
  • confuse one with the other
  • get confused about something

Prepositions

Etymology

LatinOld FrenchEnglish

From Latin 'confusus', meaning 'mingled' or 'disordered', from 'confundere' ('to pour together'), where 'con-' means 'together' and 'fundere' means 'to pour'. The original idea was of liquids being poured into the same container and becoming mixed. This image of things running together gave rise to the modern meanings: mental mixing-up (sense 1) and mistaking one thing for another (sense 2).