- mistake#
- mistake vb Mistake, confuse, confound are comparable when they mean to mix up things, typically by taking one thing for another.One mistakes one thing for another when by an error of perception or of thought or as a result of a predisposition or a bias one fails to recognize the thing or to comprehend its real nature and identifies it with something not itself or with something of another nature{
pointed out that Johnson's a's and o's have been mistaken one for the other— Sherbo
}{the tendency of the rest of us to mistake gush for vigor and substitute rhetoric for imagination— Day Lewis
}One confuses one thing with another when one fails to distinguish two things that have similarities or common characteristics or to observe their lines of demarcation{very possibly some of the cases confuse the principles that govern jurisdiction with those that govern merits— Justice Holmes
}{far too intellectually keen to confuse moral problems with purely aesthetic problems— Ellis
}One confounds things, or one thing with another, when one mixes them up so hopelessly that one cannot detect their differences or distinctions. Confound usually carries a stronger connotation of mental bewilderment or of a muddled mind than the preceding words and accordingly is often preferred when the differences are more or less obvious to a clearheaded or intelligent person (courage must not be confounded with brutality.){Brutality is pleasure in forcing one's will upon other people; courage is indifference to personal misfortunes— Russell
}{the temptation to confound accumulated knowledge and experience with intrinsic progress is almost irresistible— Inge
}Analogous words: addle, muddle, *confuseAntonyms: recognizemistake n *error, slip, lapse, blunder, faux pas, bull, howler, boner
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.