Word of the Day

Sunday October 10, 2010

confute [kuhn-FYOOT]

transitive verb

To prove to be false by argument; to refute conclusively; to prove or show to be false.

I continue to draw inspiration from so many simple people, lacking the intellectual means to confute the Darwinian priesthood in the academy, who are nevertheless able to smell a rat, and will not be tricked or intimidated into accepting its materialist presumptions.

David Warren, "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten the Darwinoids", The Ottawa Citizen, Dec 31, 2005
The profound flaws in our officially calculated poverty rate are revealed by its very intimation that the poverty situation in America was ''better'' in 1974 than it is today. Those of us of a certain age remember the year 1974 -- in all its recession-plagued, ''stagflation''-burdened glory. But even the most basic facts bearing on poverty alleviation confute the proposition that material circumstances in America are harsher for the vulnerable today than three decades ago.

Nicholas Eberstadt, Broken Yardstick, New York Times, Sep 9, 2005
The common stories of witchcraft confute themselves, as may be seen in all the trials for that offence.

Robert Southey (1774 - 1843) An English poet of the Romantic school. Colloquies on Society (1887)

Origin of the Word

Confute, approximately 1520, derives from Middle French confuter, from Latin confutare "repress, check; disprove, restrain, silence," from com-, "together", + futare "to beat."