CONFUTING

Verb

confuting

present participle of confute

Source: Wiktionary


CONFUTE

Con*fute, v. 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.]

Definition: To overwhelm by argument; to refute conclusively; to prove or show to be false or defective; to overcome; to silence.

Satan stood . . . confuted and convinced Of 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.

I confute a good profession with a bad conversation. Fuller.

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."

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

5 October 2024

FUTON

(noun) mattress consisting of a pad of cotton batting that is used for sleeping on the floor or on a raised frame


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Coffee Trivia

There are more than 50 countries that export coffee. They are near the equator, where the climate is conducive to producing coffee beans.

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