Blackstone. Bouvier.
Confusive
(Con*fu"sive) a. Confusing; having a tendency to confusion. Bp. Hall.
Confutable
(Con*fut"a*ble) a. That may be confuted.
A conceit . . . confutable by daily experience.
Sir T.Browne.
Confutant
(Con*fut"ant) n. [L. confutans, p. pr. of confutare.] One who undertakes to confute. Milton.
Confutation
(Con`fu*ta"tion) n. [L. confutatio: cf. F. confutation.] The act or process of confuting; refutation.
"For the edification of some and the confutation of others." Bp. Horne.
Confutative
(Con*fut"a*tive) a. Adapted or designed to confute. Bp. Warburton
Confute
(Con*fute) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Confuted; p. pr. & vb. n. Confuting.] [L. confutare to chek (a
boiling liquid), to repress, confute; con- + a root seen in futis a water vessel), prob. akin to fundere to
pour: cf. F. confuter. See Fuse to melt.] To overwhelm by argument; to refute conclusively; to prove or
show to be false or defective; to overcome; to silence.
Satan stood . . . confuted and convinced
Of his weak arguing fallacious drift.
Milton.
No man's error can be confuted who doth not . . . grant some true principle that contradicts his error.
Chillingworth.
I confute a good profession with a bad conversation.
Fuller.
Syn. — To disprove; overthrow; sed aside; refute; oppugn. — To Confute, Refute. Refute is literally
to and decisive evidence; as, to refute a calumny, charge, etc. Confute is literally to check boiling, as
when cold water is poured into hot, thus serving to allay, bring down, or neutralize completely. Hence,
as applied to arguments (and the word is never applied, like refute, to charges), it denotes, to overwhelm
by evidence which puts an end to the case and leaves an opponent nothing to say; to silence; as, "the
atheist is confuted by the whole structure of things around him."
Confutement
(Con*fute"ment) n. Confutation. [Obs.] Milton.
Confuter
(Con*fut"er) n. One who confutes or disproves.
Cong
(Cong) n. (Med.) An abbreviation of Congius.
Congé
(||Con`gé") (kôN`zha"; E. kon"je; 277), n. [F., leave, permission, fr. L. commeatus a going back and
forth, a leave of absence, furlough, fr. commeare, -meatum, to go and come; com- + meare to go. Cf.
Permeate.] [Formerly written congie.]
1. The act of taking leave; parting ceremony; farewell; also, dismissal.
Should she pay off old Briggs and give her her congé?
Thackeray.
2. The customary act of civility on any occasion; a bow or a courtesy.
The captain salutes you with congé profound.
Swift.
3. (Arch.) An apophyge. Gwilt.
||Congé d'élire [F., leave to choose] (Eccl.), the sovereign's license or permission to a dean and chapter
to choose as bishop the person nominated in the missive.
