confounding meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

confounding

noun

Etymology By surface analysis, confound + -ing.

The act by which things are confounded, or confused.

Epidemiology, Medicine, Sciences The process by which an apparent association between an exposure and an outcome is actually explained by another factor.

Confounding is defined as the confusion or distortion of measures of association between exposure and outcome as a result of third (or more) variable(s).2013, Macera CA, Shaffer R, Shaffer PM, Introduction to Epidemiology: Distribution and Determinants of Disease,, Cengage Learning, page 158:

confounding

adj

Etymology By surface analysis, confound + -ing.

Confusing, bewildering, baffling or perplexing.

We have to with a Heart ſearching God, who will find out every unworthy Communicant to his utter Shame and Confuſion ; when God examins ſuch, his Queſtions will be Nonpluſſing and Confounding,[…]1716, John Willison, “A Help For The Right Improvement of Communion Sabbaths”, in A Treatise Concerning the Sanctifying of the Lord's Day. And Particularly, The Right Improvement of a Communion-Sabbath, Direction V, page 255:
But, Lord my God, help me so to remember that thou mayest forget them ; so to charge them upon myself, that thou mayest never lay them to my charge ; so to keep them before my eyes, to abase and humble my soul, that thou mayest hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities ; especially those that are so confounding and terrible to my thought.1803, Benjamin Jenks, “A Prayer Upon the Remembrance of Former Sins”, in Prayers and Offices of Devotion, For Families and For Particular Persons, Upon Most Occasions, page 230:

4 more examples

It is too suggestive and too confounding to be met but in the spirit of study.1848 August, Sylvanus Urban, “Minor Correspondence”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, page 114:
Upon which Flora returned to take care of her, and hovered about her on a sofa, intermingling kind offices and incoherent scraps of conversation in a manner so confounding, that whether she pressed the Marshalsea to take a spoonful of unclaimed dividends, for it would do her good ;[…]1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, “What Was Behind Mr. Pancks on Little Dorrit’s Hand”, in Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC, 1st book (Poverty), page 308:
Theſe things are very confounding, and no Man can be prepar'd to debate with Men, that will thus go upon all manner of Poſſibilities.1706 November 19, A Review of The State of The English Nation, volume 3, number 138, page 550:
There are thousands of species of seafood, each with its own characteristics of flavor and texture. Add to this an infinite number of preparation methods and sauces, and the wine choice becomes very confounding.1983, “Crustaceans”, in Seafood, The Knapp Press, page 8:

Derived terms: confoundingly