confounded

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of confound

   Here Mrs. Higgs paused for a moment, and drew out a huge red pocket-handkerchief, with which her face was for some minutes confounded.

   1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 124

comparative more confounded · superlative most confounded

1. Confused, astonished.

   The media is very confounded right now. They're very confused. They don't know whether to trash themselves, trash their colleagues, or what.

   2017 March 6, “Mark Levin on why Obama may have been spying on Trump; Reps. Gohmert, Meadows detail new health care proposal”, in Fox News, retrieved 06 Mar 2017

   1 more example

   Reagan has famously stumped his chroniclers. His official biographer, Edmund Morris, was so confounded by the assignment that he resorted to fiction, producing a muddled portrait of “Dutch” (Reagan’s longtime nickname) that was blasted by reviewers.

   2024 September 9, Jennifer Burns, “Book Review: 'Reagan' by Max Boot”, in New York Times, archived from the original on 23 Sep 2024

2. Defeated, thwarted.

   Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night To mortal men, he with his horrid crew Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe Confounded though immortal: […]

   1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 50–3

   Synonyms: beaten, overcome, vanquished, foiled, beaten, bested, broken, conquered

3. colloquialExtremely bad; very unpleasant; used as an intensifier.

   The confounded thing doesn't work.

   2 more examples

   "This is all stuff and nonsense," said the king; "I shall have to go myself, if we are to get this confounded whistle from him."

   1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 177

   Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.

   1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 202