Meaning & use
confound
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To cause surprise or confusion in someone, especially by contradicting their expectations, or to mix something up with something else.
See it in a sentence
The magician's trick confounded the entire audience.
Researchers must be careful not to confound the two variables in their experiment.
A note on using this word
In science and statistics, a 'confounding variable' is one that obscures the true relationship between the variables being studied.
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