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noun
Confusion  n.  
1.
The state of being mixed or blended so as to produce indistinctness or error; indistinct combination; disorder; tumult. "The confusion of thought to which the Aristotelians were liable." "Moody beggars starving for a time Of pellmell havoc and confusion."
2.
The state of being abashed or disconcerted; loss self-possession; perturbation; shame. "Confusion dwelt in every face And fear in every heart."
3.
Overthrow; defeat; ruin. "Ruin seize thee, ruthless king, Confusion on thy banners wait."
4.
One who confuses; a confounder. (Obs.)
Confusion of goods (Law), the intermixture of the goods of two or more persons, so that their respective portions can no longer be distinguished.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Confusion" Quotes from Famous Books



... not inspire love; some please the sight without captivating the affections. If all beauties were to enamour and captivate, the hearts of mankind would be in a continual state of perplexity and confusion—for beautiful objects being infinite, the sentiments they inspire ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... we can get some news," spoke Cora, when some sort of order had been brought out of the confusion, and the ship had been formally taken in charge ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose

... of the violinist's were coming in at the door of the artistes' room as Olga Lermontof preceded him down the platform steps. There was a little confusion, the sound of a fall, and simultaneously some one inadvertently pushed the door to. The next minute the accompanist was the centre of a small crowd of anxious, questioning people. She had tripped and stumbled to her knees on the threshold of the room, and, as she instinctively stretched ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... delighted the ears of the young Queen on the other side of the ocean. The question, or perhaps the way it was asked, sent a chill through Black Dennis Nolan. His glance wavered and he crumpled his fur cap in his hands. His sudden confusion showed in ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... terrific; and a long succession of huge loaded army waggons with peering head-lamps thundered past at full speed, one close behind the next, shaking the very avenue. The slightest misjudgment by the leading waggon in the confusion of light and darkness—and the whole convoy would have pitched itself together in a mass of iron, flesh, blood and ordnance; but the convoy went ruthlessly and safely forward till its final red tail-lamp swung round a corner and vanished. The avenue ceased to shake. ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... the room, and a few moments later Elsie Bellwood and Bart Hodge appeared. Hodge followed Elsie with an air of reluctance and confusion, which ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... confusion of manner, and with an accent that might very well mislead a foreigner, and it sounded imposing to the vice-governatore, who felt a secret consciousness that he could not have uttered such a sentence to save his own life, without venturing out of ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of callous selfishness were made all the more desperate by the bewildering confusion of the political situation. The most difficult problem had been the attitude of Monk, and that was all the more baffling from the fact that Monk had no clear discernment of his own line of policy, and with all ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... cried piteously, "don't go for to think I have told you a lie! why should I? and indeed I am not of that sort, nor Dick neither. Sir, I'll bring him to you, and he will say the same. Well, we were all in terror and confusion, and I met him accidentally in the street. He was only a customer till then, and paid ready money, so that is how I never knew his name, but if I hadn't been the greatest fool in England, I should ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... of the telegraph, I was again in correspondence with General Schofield at Raleigh. He had made great progress in paroling the officers and men of Johnston's army at Greensboro', but was embarrassed by the utter confusion and anarchy that had resulted from a want of understanding on many minor points, and on the political questions that had to be met at the instant. In order to facilitate the return to their homes of the Confederate officers and men, he had been forced to make with ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... stood there seemed to be a hopeless confusion of men and machines, but they knew that back of all the hurry, and bustle, and noise, was a great machine, a wonderful system, born in a human brain and reaching its lines ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... confusion which exists in the classification and rates of the seventeen hundred railroad organizations of the country makes it difficult for the commission to do justice to all interests and localities. With the adoption of a uniform ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... finished the brandy, he searched the locker under the cushion of the seat and found, amongst a confusion of odds and ends, a sealed bottle of whisky and ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... last; and it came at a moment when the whole capital of the four brothers was in the king's paper, and when the finances were in a state of inconceivable confusion. The old king died in 1715, leaving as heir to the throne a sickly boy five years of age. The royal paper was so much depreciated that the king's promise to pay one hundred francs sold in the street for twenty-five francs. Then came the Scotch inflator, John Law, who gave France ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... music, with its new scales, its new harmonies, its new coloring, its new rhythmical life, were being revolutionized, as if it were returning to its beginnings. It is as if some of the original impulse to make music were reawakening. And so, through this confusion, Berlioz has suddenly flamed with significance. For he himself was the rankest of barbarians. A work like the "Requiem" has no antecedents. It conforms to no accepted canon, seems to obey no logic other than that of ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... appealed. "I ain't 'Enry, dammit! You're bashing me—me—Simon!" He swore rather finely; but the fog, the general confusion, and, above all, the enthusiasm of bashing rendered identification by voice impracticable. Indeed, if any heard it, it had no effect; for, so they had some one to bash, they would bash. It didn't matter to them, just so it was a bash. Flanagan heard it quite clearly, but he knew the madness ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... have expected to meet with any thing very serious, at any period, from so indolent and careless a writer as Anacreon. But Luxury even in his time had made considerable progress in the world. The principles of Theology were sufficiently well established. Civil polity had succeeded to a state of confusion, and men were become fond of ease and affluence, of wine and women. Anacreon lived at the court of a voluptuous Monarch[49], and had nothing to divert his mind from the pursuit of happiness in his own way. His Odes therefore are of that kind, in which the gentler Graces peculiarly predominate. ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie

... outbreaks of criminal anarchism, were justified by persons who professed a conscientious objection to defending their homes and families against a foreign invader. This state of mind proves how little essential connexion there is between democracy and peace. It discloses a confusion of ideas even greater than the antithesis between industrialism and militarism in the writings of Herbert Spencer. On this latter fallacy it is enough to quote the words of Admiral Mahan; 'As far as the advocacy ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... (g) lawn. With the bright prospect blest, the swains repair In social bands, and give a loose to care. Rash councils now, with each malignant plan, Each faction, that in evil hour began, At your approach are in confusion fled, Nor, while you rule, shall rear their dastard head. Alike the master and the slave shall fee Their neck reliev'd, the yoke unbound by thee. Ere now our guiltless isle, her wretched fate Had wept, and groan'd beneath th' oppressive weight Of Cruel woes; save thy victorious hand, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... parts is overrated or remains a debatable question and everywhere more or less open to suspicion. A standard of value linked to the changing fortunes of two metals instead of one, when combined with an existing disjointed and all-pervading confusion in the ratio of value, must necessarily be linked to the hazard of double perturbations and become an alternating standard ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... a gentleman called Paul Enderby, only to learn after the ceremony that her husband had a twin-brother Saul, who must have been the twinniest twin that ever breathed, since at no moment could any living soul tell the two apart. I won't harrow you with details, but the confusion was such that, even after the unlamented decease of Paul, poor bewildered Mrs. Enderby was by no means sure that she wasn't only a bereaved sister-in-law. Her sad plight reminded me of nothing so much as that of the lady in Engaged who entreated to have three questions answered: ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various

... blushing crimson, but the roguish look was still in her eyes. Never in all her life had she looked prettier than in that moment of excitement and confusion. She lifted her hand and felt it grasped by Frank, and then, in dismay, she turned and fled, laughing to cover her agitation. She quickly disappeared, but her laugh rang in Merriwell's ears, for it was quite as bewitching as ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... to shew her all honour, leading her from the door into a room by themselves; and when he found her in tears, addressed her in the most considerate and subdued, yet still not unhappy manner, taking her confusion for bashfulness, and never dreaming what ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... so far to see so miserable a place as Palos, which he set down as one of the very poorest places in the whole world; but this additional toil and struggle through deep sand to visit the old convent of La Rabida completed his confusion— "Hombre!" exclaimed he, "es una ruina! no hay mas que dos frailes!"— "Zounds! why it's a ruin! there are only two friars there!" Don Juan laughed, and told him that I had come all the way from Seville precisely to see that old ruin and those two friars. The calasero ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... cabin, where he seized a pair of pistols, and still crying loudly to his sleeping fellow-officers, prepared to defend himself to the last. Unfortunately his pistols were not loaded, and in his hurry and confusion he could ...
— The South Seaman - An Incident In The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke

... which he applied; for the religious were clinging to the archbishop, whom they caused to fall to the floor, with the most holy sacrament. It was only by great good fortune that he did not lose his grasp upon it at this time. In this confusion a soldier drew his sword, and threw himself upon it, intending to kill himself—saying that the man who had seen the most holy sacrament upon the ground was no longer fit to live. He lay there, wounded, and thus they took him prisoner, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various

... distributed among the soldiers, and the new masters of the city, the Mamertines or "men of Mars," as they called themselves, soon became the third power in the island, the north-eastern portion of which they reduced to subjection in the times of confusion that succeeded the death of Agathocles. The Carthaginians were no unwilling spectators of these events, which established in the immediate vicinity of the Syracusans a new and powerful adversary instead of a cognate and ordinarily allied ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... at last, Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Hartley, the six girls, and Harold. But what a scrambling it was, and what a confusion of chatter, laughter, ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

... tumult of noise quite sufficient to scare a braver crew than our party consisted of. The effect of my mishap was instantaneous. Our followers raised an universal shout of Sheit[a]n, Sheit[a]n, (the devil, the devil,) and rushed helter skelter back from the direction of the sound. In the confusion all the torches carried by the natives were extinguished, and had not my friend Sturt displayed the most perfect coolness and self-possession, we should have been in an alarming predicament; for he (uninfluenced by any such supernatural fears as had been ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... were running in some such groove, but they were all as tangled and confused as the luxuriant undergrowth around me. It must have been out of this confusion that the impulse arose which caused me to address a question to Sister Agnes that startled her as much as if a shell ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various

... vessels thro' which the animal spirits ought freely to pass, and the whole mass of blood, being disordered, either overloads the small veins of the brain, or by too quick a motion, causes a hurry and confusion of the mind, from which ensues a giddiness and at length a fury. The abundance of bile, which is rarely found to have any tolerable secretion in such patients, both begets and carries on the disorder." Again, it will be seen that there is nothing more than the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... I noticed how utterly tired I was both in mind and body. I crept under the blankets and closed my eyes and saw a vast confusion of red and yellow patches, of severed limbs and staring eyes and blue, distorted faces of suffocating men. They thronged the darkness in ever increasing numbers and then they arranged themselves into a kind of gigantic wheel that began to turn slowly round and ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... often been told, though with curious confusion as regards the date, how Mr. Browning picked up the original parchment-bound record of the Franceschini case, on a stall of the Piazza San Lorenzo. We read in the first section of his own work ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... young gentleman felt himself color to the roots of his hair, and for a moment he could scarce recollect that first rudiment of manners, "to make his bow like a good boy." Susan colored also; but, perceiving the confusion of our hero, her countenance assumed an expression of mischievous drollery, which, helped on by the titter of her companions, added not a little to ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the means of protection in himself. It was rather early, but he looked at circumstances in his own way. Distrust he had already acquired—and timidity! He daily made clumsy attempts to get behind what people said, and behind things. There was something more behind everything! It often led to confusion, but occasionally ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... confusion frequently happens in the case of temptations from the world. We fear worldly loss or discredit; or we hope some advantage; and we feel tempted to act so as to secure, at any rate, the worldly good, or to avoid the evil. Now in all such cases of conduct there is no ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... of estate agents describing the neighbourhood (in the manner of the great George Robins) as "Scotland in Sussex." The simile may be true of the Ashdown Forest side of the Beacon (although involving an unnecessary confusion of terms), but "Hampstead in Sussex" would be a more accurate description of Crowborough proper. Never was a fine remote hill so be-villa'd. The east slope is all scaffold-poles and heaps of bricks, new churches and chapels are sprouting, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... understand him, Eo, and wish I had time to study the phenomena. He was different from the others. He believed in something and considered himself lowly and humble. The minds of the others were in constant confusion. They believed, actually, in nothing. Somehow, he saw me, Eo. I was forced ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert

... the side of a rocky slope, and just in front, in a dip of the hill, are crowded the whole of the 87th Brigade to which we are for the present attached. All arrived this morning and there is nothing but confusion. The heat is terrific, and is intensified by the large amount of bare rocks, which are so hot that it is impossible to lay your hand on them. The surrounding hills, especially hill 972, S.E. of the Salt Lake which glistens in the distance, ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... shame and confusion that she heard the ignorant coachman pass her off as his sweetheart, and ask his brother, the night-watchman, to admit her on the sly, as she was one of the girls employed in ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey

... before, but we needed every man to bring off the things on the island," replied Captain Woelkers, his confusion crimsoning his face. ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... the British ranks into great confusion for the time, and the main body of our riflemen delivered their fire, killing the brave Lieutenant-Colonel Williams of the British army. But the others presently recovered from their panic and pushed forward, while ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley

... that they can accomplish the most work and concentrate themselves upon it the most perfectly when in the midst of noise and confusion are paying a great price for the increase of energy, available for profitable work. To be dependent on confusion for the necessary stimulation is abnormal and expensive. Rapid exhaustion and a shortened life result. It is a ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... the riddled and sinking Spanish ships the wildest confusion reigned. At eleven o'clock, the American fleet was seen again approaching, and a few minutes later, that terrible storm of fire recommenced. There was practically no reply. Three of the Spanish ships were on fire, and their magazines exploded ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... of this ungracious earth have a fancy that there must be huge confusion and a mighty bobbery in nature, corresponding with that which is for ever going on in their own little spheres. If we have a toothache, we look for a change of weather; our rheumatism is a sure sign that God has made his arrangements to give us a slapping rain; and, should ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... was gazing at her in a speechless confusion of mind too great for words. A sudden, inexplicable emotion took possession of him,—an emotion to which he could give no name, but which stupefied him and held him mute. Was it her beauty which so dazzled his ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... happier. Now, please tell me about yourself. I want to know whether you have quite recovered from the effect of your dreadful exertions this morning. My! I don't believe I shall ever forget how I felt when I rushed up on deck to find out what all the confusion was about, and saw you swimming in the water, ever so far away, with Julius hanging ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... The congregation stood in groups in the kirkyard, "just," as they said, "to hae anither look at the orator;" and he must pass through the midst of them. With his very soul steeped in shame, and his cheeks covered with confusion, he stepped from the kirk door. A humming noise issued through the crowd, and every one turned their faces towards him. His misery was greater than he could bear. "Yon was oratory for ye!" said one. "Poor deevil!" ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... said to him, "Put thy hand between my thighs to the accustomed place; so haply it may stand up to prayer after prostration." He wept and cried, "I am not good at aught of this," but she said, "By my life, an thou do as I bid thee, it shall profit thee!" So he put out his hand, with vitals a-fire for confusion, and found her thighs cooler than cream and softer than silk. The touching of them pleasured him and he moved his hand hither and thither, till it came to a dome abounding in good gifts and movements and shifts, and said in himself, "Perhaps this King is a hermaphrodite,[FN348] neither man nor ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... heard them and came and drew back the bolt of the door; then, as soon as the leaves of the door yielded they burst in in a body, and upsetting the servant made for the bedchamber. Leontidas, guessing from the noise and confusion what was going on, started up and seized his dagger, but he forgot to put out the light, and make the men fall upon each other in the darkness. In full view of them, in a blaze of light, he met them at his chamber door, and with a blow of his dagger struck down Kephisodorus, the first man who ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... Arbe, cresting its rocky point with a picturesque confusion of walls, campanili, and house-roofs that seemed to grow out of the rocks, so well do they harmonise with them, the afternoon was sunny and delightful, though the roads showed signs of the rain which had recently ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... destruction of daily conflicts, suffered from terrible scarcity of provisions. 'Not a day passed without a fire; sometimes eight or ten houses were burning at the same moment; and in the midst of all the fear, horror, and confusion incident to such disasters, Blake and his little garrison had to meet the storming-parties of an enemy brave, exasperated, and ten times their own strength. But every inch of ground was gallantly defended. A broad belt of ruined cottages ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various

... be independent enough not to agree to that?- I think so. But there is a confusion there. I could not enter into ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... him answer the letter and apologize. They had never met. It was some confusion with a man in the Church Army, living at a place called Codford. I asked the nurse. It is ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... source of confidence? What did I know of this world only yesterday? Then every way seemed clear and open for me, my friends abundant, and love profuse; to-day I am in awful doubts, and yet I must not lose my will and drift with every passing fear and confusion into the fickleness which makes woman contemptible after she has given her hand. I will never give up two persons—my father, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... epidermis is photographed.) Accordingly, when the negative is printed, it should be printed gloss side to sensitive side of paper to give the position comparable to an inked print made from the same skin or finger. In order to avoid error or confusion a notation should be made on the photograph of each finger, or, if they are cut and mounted on a fingerprint card, point out that the position has been reversed and that the prints are in their correct position for classifying and searching. ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation

... tell everything. This puerile hunting after details, this cold and cynical inventory of all the wretched conditions in the midst of which poor humanity vegetates, not only do not help us to understand it better, but, on the contrary, the effect on the spectators is a kind of dazzled confusion mingled with fatigue and disgust. The material truthfulness to which the school of M. Flaubert more especially pretends misses its aim in going beyond it. Truth is lost in its ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... in sackcloth, with her hair hanging loose upon her shoulders, walks slowly up the aisle, followed by WHARTON and other Quakers. The congregation starts up in confusion. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... country with my papers, or I would send it by this conveyance. My own affairs necessarily detained me here after the departure of Congress, and it is well I staid, as I am obliged to set many things right, that would otherwise be in the greatest confusion. Indeed, I find my presence so very necessary, that I shall remain here until the enemy ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... back, and surveyed the walls with astonished eyes: could this room be a woman's lodgings? Who could live here? His old uncle was unmarried, and his aunt had dwelt for years in St. Petersburg. Could that be the housekeeper's chamber? A piano? On it music and books; all abandoned in careless confusion: sweet disorder! ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... if that were the case, there might be some excuse for his folly. No; all this dirt and confusion, which once a week drives me nearly beside myself, is what K—— calls clearing up the ship; when he and his man Friday, as he calls Kelly, turn everything topsy-turvy, and, to make the muddle more complete, they always choose my washing-day for their ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... were completed. The house, stripped of most of its familiar furnishings, wore already a strange, uncomfortable aspect, full of packing-cases and confusion. Fred had already been obliged to return to college, and Lucy was to be the next to go. Alick was to escort her to the next railway station, and see her on the train which was to take her to the city. It was the first time she ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... as told in the Gospels furnishes no ground for any confusion on the subject of his human life. It represents him as subject to all ordinary human conditions excepting sin. He began life as every infant begins, in feebleness and ignorance; and there is no hint of any precocious development. He learned ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... and dragons of the pit; we heard also in that Valley a continual howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction and irons; and over that Valley hangs the discouraging clouds of confusion. Death also doth always spread his wings over it. In a word, it is every whit dreadful, being utterly without order ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... ghastly confusion of metaphors is on record as having been offered extemporaneously in behalf of Queen Adelaide during the reign of that sovereign. The words as quoted ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... reason the argument they imply is irresistible. The story of the examination of Gaspar, the servant of Simon, in the Inquisition scene, is gravely urged by M. Neufchateau as a proof that the writer was a Frenchman, as no Spaniard would dare to attack the Inquisition. This is strange confusion. Not a word is uttered against the Inquisition in the scene. Some impostors disguise themselves in the dress of inquisitors to perpetrate a fraud. If a French novel describe two or three swindlers, assuming the garb of members of the old Parliament of Paris in execution of their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... Dondi of Padua,[7] and probably started as early as 1348. It might well be possible to set a date a few decades earlier, but in general as one proceeds backwards from this point, the evidence becomes increasingly fragmentary and uncertain. The greatest source of doubt arises from the confusion between sundials, water-clocks, hand-struck time bells, and mechanical clocks, all of which are covered by the term ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price

... epistolary style, notes written in a boudoir, notes of invitation, sometimes confessions of love, the whole feminine heart trembling as a hurt bird trembles in a man's hand. And here are yachts and blue water, the water full of the blueness of the sky; and the confusion of masts and rigging is perfectly indicated without tiresome explanation! The colour is deep and rich, for the values have been truly observed; and the pink house on the left is an exquisite note. No deep solutions, an art afloat and ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... amazingly invaded, darkness added to an instant of frantic confusion. Laramie was knocked flat. In the midst of the fallen timbers, the horse, mad with terror, struggled to get to his feet. A suppressed groan betrayed ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... there is no terrible complication which may not occur in the life of such, so there is no bitter irony which may not follow all. The early afternoon of April 6th found the C.C. on the site of the now camp, surrounded by confusion and an angry crowd of experts. There had been words and more words; there had only just not been blows, and all with regard to this wretched and incessant subject of April 7th. The C.C., never broad-minded on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various

... Government partially into the hands of Negroes is proposed at a time peculiarly unpropitious. The foundations of society have been broken up by civil war. Industry must be reorganized, justice reestablished, public credit maintained, and order brought out of confusion. To accomplish these ends would require all the wisdom and virtue of the great men who formed our institutions originally. I confidently believe that their descendants will be equal to the arduous task before them, but it ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson

... going on a full canter, he gave the words, 'Present! fire!' and off it went, knocked him backwards, and shivered a beautiful mirror into a thousand pieces. Oh, what a sad scene of confusion ensued! Some of the young ladies screamed out with fright. Miss Timid, knocked down by Dicky in falling backwards, lay on the ground bleeding at the nose. Some were employed in picking up the pieces of glass, or pinning their handkerchiefs over the fracture, to ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... was confusion; books were dropped, school was forgotten, screams and shouts filled the air, while the teacher—a stranger in ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller

... rebels. Next morning, as this force was approaching Cobolo, the Acoos, who were concealed in the bush, fired upon the head of the column, and the volunteers at once, and without firing a shot, turned and ran in the greatest confusion; nor did they recover from their panic till they had reached Waterloo. The Acoos pursued the fugitives for some little distance, and killed seven ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis

... refrain at the end of each line is omitted in the free translation, as it would make confusion. If retained, the first four lines ...
— Osage Traditions • J. Owen Dorsey

... our making mistakes in this outward development of the senses; but the confusion which it occasions us, and our fidelity in making use of it, is the furnace in which we are most quickly purified, by dying the soonest to ourselves. It is here also that we lose the esteem of men. They look on us with ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... reply. Then there was some kind of stir and confusion around Serafima Aleksandrovna; strange, unnecessary faces bent over her, some one held her—and Lelechka was ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... local newspapers from many parts of India having now come in, it is possible through the fearful confusion to read some facts that would cause despair, were it not for two remembrances: first, what nation it is that supports the struggle; secondly, that of the six weeks immediately succeeding to the 10th of September, no two days, no period of forty-eight ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... summits of the Indian jungles were aflame in a thousand places, and below the hurrying waters around the stems were dark objects that still struggled feebly and reflected the blood-red tongues of fire. And in a rudderless confusion a multitude of men and women fled down the broad river-ways to that one last hope ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... imagination is not false outward vision, but intense inward representation, and a creative energy constantly fed by susceptibility to the veriest minutiae of experience, which it reproduces and constructs in fresh and fresh wholes; not the habitual confusion of probable fact with the fictions of fancy and transient inclination, but a breadth of ideal association which informs every material object, every incidental fact, with far-reaching memories and stored residues of passion, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... repeating the substance of their prophecy, that people should be converted from their idols to the living God. But by all that repetition parties and sects multiplied, and there has been since Martin Luther's appearance until this hour so dreadful a Babylon, or confusion and delusion in social, political and ecclesiastical affairs, as there never was before. And while pious men were looking into the prophecies, to see the end of this dreadful Babylon, Doctor Bengel of Wurtemberg in Germany ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar

... up blowing, and began to swim toward the dinghy without further ado. Jarrow now yelled to the rowers to keep backing, and when Peth roared at him to "shut his head," the captain, taking advantage of the confusion, stood up and leaped into the water and began swimming to the schooner quite as fast as Doc swam ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... that was good that she would slit the nose of this girle, and be gone herself this very night from me, and did there demand 3 or L400 of me to buy my peace, that she might be gone without making any noise, or else protested that she would make all the world know of it. So with most perfect confusion of face and heart, and sorrow and shame, in the greatest agony in the world I did pass this afternoon, fearing that it will never have an end; but at last I did call for W. Hewer, who I was forced to make privy now to all, and the poor fellow ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... and Faustina could not have been over sixteen—we do not know her exact age. There are stories to the effect that the wife of Marcus Aurelius severely tried her husband's temper at times, but these tales seem to have arisen through a confusion of the two Faustinas. The elder Faustina was the one who set the merry pace in frivolity, and once said that any woman with a husband twenty years her senior must be allowed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... the grey light of dawn that streamed cheerlessly through his shutterless window, struggling with the faint ray of a candle that Gawtrey, shading with his hand, held over the sleeper. He started up, and, in the confusion of waking and the imperfect light by which he beheld the strong features of Gawtrey, half imagined it was a ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... his mouth, for instance; the house and garden are absolutely silent. In short, my master has not a single wish left; everything comes in the twinkling of an eye, if he raises his hand, and instanter. Quite right, too. If servants are not looked after, everything falls into confusion. You would never believe the lengths he goes about things. His rooms are all—what do you call it?—er—er—en suite. Very well; just suppose, now, that he opens his room door or the door of his ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... a study. Delight, horror, and confusion was depicted on it. He looked at Nobbles thoughtfully, then ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre

... admirable discipline of the Legion could prevent some confusion. Such of the men as were on duty in pilot-house, pits, wireless, or engine-room were all sticking; but a number of off-duty Legionaries were crowding into the main corridor. Among them the Master ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... "It was not so frightfully difficult to guess, after what you said about the green diamond ring yesterday—why, you have got it on! It is lovely, isn't it? I think it is just as beautiful—" Mollie stopped in some confusion, "I mean it is the loveliest ring I ever saw. If I ever get engaged I should like one ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... dames, that spread O'er their pale cheeks an artful red, Beheld this beauteous stranger there, In native charms divinely fair; Confusion in their looks they show'd; ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... outnumber the Roman Catholics, in all other parts the Roman Catholics are in a vast majority. Ireland was occupied by Iberian peoples in prehistoric times; these were conquered and absorbed by Celtic tribes; many kingdoms were set up, and strife and confusion prevailed. There was Christianity in the island before St. Patrick crossed from Strathclyde in the 5th century. Invasions by Danes, 8th to 10th centuries, and conquest by Normans under Henry II. 1162-1172, fomented ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... but one of the logs of the Endeavour, extant, that of Mr. Green the astronomer, was kept in this time, and the events of say Thursday, June 24th, of Cook's Journal, are therein given as happening on Wednesday, June 23rd. These differences of reckoning have been a fertile source of confusion in dates ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... Bennie in tow, there were tears, and exclamations, followed by a little stricken silence on the part of Frau Nirlanger when she saw Bennie snatched to the breast of this weeping woman. So it was that in the midst of the confusion we did not hear the approach of the probation officer and her charge. They came up the path to the door, and there the little sister turned the knob, and it yielded under her fingers, and the old door swung open; and so she entered the house quite as Alma Pflugel had planned she should, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... the users of any of these five methods of compensation of Scientific Management are all ready and glad to acknowledge the worth of all these systems. In many works more than one, in some all, of these systems of payment may be in use. Far from this resulting in confusion, it simply leads to the understanding that whatever is best in the particular situation should be used. It also leads to a feeling of stability everywhere, as a man who has worked under any of these systems founded on ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth

... serving-girls ran more swiftly to and fro, responding with a more nervous shrillness to the calls of "Fraulein! Fraulein!" that followed them. The proprietor, in his bare head, stood like one paralyzed by his prosperity, which sent up all round him the clash of knives and crockery, and the confusion of tongues. It was more than an hour before Burnamy caught Lili's eye, and three times she promised to come and be paid before she came. Then she said, "It is so nice, when you stay a little," and when he told her of the poor Fraulein who had broken the dishes in her fall near them, she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... features a little unbended from that ferocious contraction they had retained so long, ventured to inform him that Pickle's sister lay at the point of death, and that she had left him a thousand pounds in her will. This piece of news overwhelmed him with confusion; and Mr. Hatchway, imputing his silence to remorse, resolved to take advantage of that favourable moment, and counselled him to go and visit the poor young woman, who was dying for love of him. But his admonition happened to be somewhat unseasonable. Trunnion no sooner ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... altogether charming. Mr. Peyton toasted Mistress Betty Carrington, and Mr. Frederick Jones, Mistress Lettice Verney, "fairest and most discreet of ladies." They drank to Captain Laramore's next voyage, to Mr. Wormeley's success in vine planting, to Major Carrington's conversion. They drank confusion to Quakers, Independents, Baptists and infidels, to the heathen on the frontier and the Papists in Maryland, the Dutch on the Hudson and the French on the St. Lawrence,—"Quebec in exchange for Dunkirk!" ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... blows, the confusion, the sight of the blood drove the old woman in the corner suddenly upright on her tottering feet. Her rheumy eyes glared affrighted at the sight of the only friend she recognized in all her mad, black world lying there across ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... his chin; the look of wisdom with which he immediately plunged into the deepest thought, or became intensely interested in the habits and customs of the flies upon the ceiling, or the sparrows out of doors; or the overwhelming politeness with which he endeavoured to hide his confusion by handing the muffin; may not unreasonably be assumed to have exercised the utmost power of feature that even Martin ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Confusion" :   confusedness, embarrassment, disorientation, shemozzle, mix-up, bewilderment, demoralisation, pandemonium, jamais vu, bluster, discombobulation, befuddlement, babel, confuse, puzzlement, fault, mystification, muddiness, topsy-turvydom, daze, schemozzle, topsy-turvyness, perplexity, mistake, bemusement, state of mind, obfuscation, error, cognitive state, half-cock



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