Literary notes about Confound (AI summary)
The word confound appears with a versatile range of functions in literature. In many works it serves as a mild oath or exclamatory interjection to express irritation or disbelief, as seen in the spirited shouts of characters in narratives ([1], [2], [3]). In other contexts it is employed to denote the mixing up of ideas, events, or entities, such as when historical or legal distinctions are blurred ([4], [5], [6]). Some authors use it to convey a sense of perplexity or to underscore the inherent confusion in social and moral judgments ([7], [8]), while others incorporate it as a poetic device to intensify language and evoke complex emotional states ([9], [10]). Overall, its flexible usage enhances both the rhetorical force and the nuanced characterization within diverse literary genres ([11], [12]).
- “Confound it, I’ve never denied it, I tell you!
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - “Confound it,” said Philip to himself, “she’s in a perfect twitter.”
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner - ‘Confound it!’ reasoned the lord, ‘you were thick enough with her that day, anyhow.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens - The Epitomes furnish some circumstances; but they frequently confound the two wars between Licinius and Constantine.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - But we ought not to confound negligence with moderation, or clemency with weakness.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - I conceive that I must not confound the tree citrus, with that of the fruit citrum.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - We do not understand our own meaning in talking so, but ignorantly confound ideas, which are entirely distinct from each other.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume - We misunderstand what the religious sentiment really is, if we confound it with every impression of admiration and surprise.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - That year, indeed, he was troubled with a rheum; What willingly he did confound he wail'd, Believe't- till I weep too.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - Or could we break our way By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise With blackest Insurrection, to confound Heav'ns purest Light, yet
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton - “Pologne, Catalogue, Valogne, I always confound those three provinces, One thing is certain, that they are gypsies.”
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo - What if the gods, the skilful to confound, Have thrown the horse and horseman to the ground?
— from The Iliad by Homer
