Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Confute
Con-fute
,Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Confuted
; p. pr. & vb. n.
Confuting
.] [L.
confutare
to chek (a boiling liquid), to repress, confute; con-
+ a root seen in futis
a water vessel), prob. akin to fundere
to pour: cf. F. confuter
. See Fuse
to melt.] To overwhelm by argument; to refute conclusively; to prove or show to be false or defective; to overcome; to silence.
Satan stood . . .
Of his weak arguing fallacious drift.
confuted
and convincedOf his weak arguing fallacious drift.
Milton.
No man’s error can be
confuted
who doth not . . . grant some true principle that contradicts his error. Chillingworth.
Syn. – To disprove; overthrow; sed aside; refute; oppugn.
– To
Confute
, Refute.
Refute is literally to and decisive evidence; as, to refute a calumny, charge, etc. Confute is literally to check boiling, as when cold water is poured into hot, thus serving to allay, bring down, or neutralize completely. Hence, as applied to arguments (and the word is never applied, like refute, to charges), it denotes, to overwhelm by evidence which puts an end to the case and leaves an opponent nothing to say; to silence; as, “the atheist is confuted by the whole structure of things around him.” Webster 1828 Edition
Confute
CONFUTE
,Verb.
T.
1.
To disprove; to prove to be false, defective or invaled; to overthrow; as, to confute arguments, reasoning, theory, error.2.
To prove to be wrong; to convict of error, by argument or proof; as, to confute an advocate at the bar; to confute a writer.Definition 2024
confute
confute
English
Verb
confute (third-person singular simple present confutes, present participle confuting, simple past and past participle confuted)
- (transitive, now rare) To show (something or someone) to be false or wrong; to disprove or refute.
- 1593, Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence:
- Procatalepsis is a forme of speech by which the Orator perceiving aforehand what might be objected against him, and hurt him, doth confute it before it be spoken […] .
- 1644, John Milton, Aeropagitica:
- bad books [...] to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate.
- 1593, Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence:
Translations
to disprove, refute
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