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Confusion   Listen
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



... checked his familiar growl, looked with growing suspicion from Esme's flushed loveliness to Hal's self conscious confusion, leaped to his feet, gathered the pair into a sudden, violent, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Jordan, of the Ninth Pennsylvania Cavalry, though surprised, made a stand, and the battle at once opened. But a few shots from Morgan's mountain howitzers utterly demoralized the Federals, and they fled in confusion. ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... with. It all happens before Abbot has time to realize what is going on, then she scurries up the stone steps and rings the bell. His first impulse is to go and open the door himself, but that will produce confusion. She will have no time to dispose of that packet, and Major Abbot will not take advantage of what he has inadvertently seen. He hears the old butler shuffling along the marble hallway, ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... morality as a word through the force of immemorial habit unavoidably suggests to the mind the relation of status, it appears to me that its use to describe truly social conduct in a society of equals can lead to nothing but confusion. What we really need is the right word to apply to the highest conduct in a classless society; and, I am inclined to think that a generation to whom the idea of status will have become wholly alien will find the ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... a perpetual dialogue from the Prefecture of Police to the Department of the Interior, and from the Department of the Interior to the Prefecture of Police. All the most alarming news, all the signs of panic and confusion were passed on, one after another, from the prefect to the minister. Morny, who was less frightened, and who is, at least, a man of spirit, received all these shocks in his cabinet It is reported that at the first communication he said: 'Maupas is ill;' and to the question: ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... temporarily blinded by that vicious bright blade of flame stabbing the gloom a hand's breadth from his eyes, and deafened by the crash of the explosion not two feet from his ear-drums, he quickened to the circumstances with much of the confusion of a man awakened by a thunder-clap from evil dreams ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... to five, designed becoming dresses for boys and girls, decreed that lute playing and deportment should become obligatory subjects in the curriculum, and otherwise reformed the scholastic calendar which, before his day, had drifted into sad confusion and laxity. Sometimes he honoured the ceremony of prize-giving with his presence. On the other hand it must be admitted that, judged by modern standards, certain of his methods for punishing disobedience smacks of downright pedantry. Thrice a year, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... all was confusion, for the mind of its afflicted mistress was scarcely able to bear up against the weight of misery that pressed upon it; and Lady Frances Cromwell felt happy and relieved when, about eight in the morning, she fell into an apparently sound sleep. The preparations ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... to find some means of accomplishing his plan of self-destruction, when he heard a bustle and confusion outside. In a few moments the door was opened and a man was thrust into the same cell—a man who staggered a few steps, fell heavily to the floor, and began to snore loudly. It was ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... 265. The reference here is to Murray's address before the Botanical Society, Edinburgh. Mr. Darwin seems to have read Murray's views only in a separate copy reprinted from the "Proc. R. Soc. Edin." There is some confusion about the date of the paper; the separate copy is dated January 16th, while in the volume of the "Proc. R. Soc." it is February 20th. In the "Life and Letters," II., page 261 it is erroneously stated that these are two different papers.); ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... confusion a high result of taste? Isn't it what's called a feeling for the ensemble? The artistic effect, as a whole, is so welded together that you can't ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... Chevreuse had been too well accustomed to nocturnal political intrigues to be ignorant that a minister never denies himself, even at his own private residence, to any young and beautiful woman who may chance to object to the dust and confusion of a public office, or to old women, as full of experience as of years, who dislike the indiscreet echo of official residences. A valet received the duchesse under the peristyle, and received her, it must be ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... his neck, and, putting his hands up, found the loop of the lasso, which he loosened, but did not think to slip over his head, in the confusion of his perceptions and thoughts. It was a wonder that it had not choked him, but he had fallen forward so ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... which followed was interrupted by a sudden confusion among the prisoners on the platform. Two of the guards sprang in among them. There was the thump of a heavy fall—a scream of terror from some of the female prisoners—then another dead silence, broken by one of the guards, who walked across the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... pieces, we see distinctly that the English nation during the long, peaceable, and economical reign of Henry VII., whether from the exhaustion which was the fruit of the civil wars, or from more general European influences, had made a sudden transition from the powerful confusion of the middle age, to the regular tameness of modern times. Henry the Eighth has, therefore, somewhat of a prosaic appearance; for Shakspeare, artist-like, adapted himself always to the quality ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... passengers flocked to it. They hailed him from the opposite side by waving flags, and Julian would jump into the boat and row over. The craft was very heavy, and the people loaded it with all sorts of baggage, and beasts of burden, who reared with fright, thereby adding greatly to the confusion. He asked nothing for his trouble; some gave him left-over victuals which they took from their sacks or worn-out garments which they could ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert

... she said in her confusion, "it was not necessary, it was not worth while, to have asked audience of me for this. You have leave ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... passed me. I could perceive by the receding of the sound, that she had gone on without stopping. Lilian followed at a distance of about ten paces. Her body was bent to one side by the weight of the water-can; while her long golden-hair, falling in confusion over the straining arm, almost swept the sward at her feet. The toilsome attitude only displayed in greater perfection the splendid development of that feminine form—which death alone could now hinder me from calling ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... of the din and confusion that this encounter produced, steps that could never by any possibility be mistaken for those of a schoolboy struck ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... conquered provinces in our military occupation, has ceased. By their cession to the United States Mexico has no longer any power over them, and until Congress shall act the inhabitants will be without any organized government. Should they be left in this condition, confusion and anarchy will be ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... upon the water Janet fell a victim to mal-de-mer, and 'twas Katherine who turned nurse; and after four or five days Janet grew better and was half ashamed, veiling her confusion with self-accusation: "'Tis good enough for me, 'twas wrong to be eating pork, 'tis positively forbidden us. I lay it to that! I gave myself over to eating to make up for a fast of nine long years. Thou hadst not a qualm because thou hast been ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... leaning forward with its hands back of its ears, smiling pleasantly at what he did not understand, and Industry, who saw the strings in which his world was wrapped up for delivery, cut, and the world sprawled in confusion before him by the preacher's defiance, was pulling his military goatee solemnly when Science toddled in, white-clad, pink-faced, smoking his short pipe and clicking his cane rather more snappily ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... them, twisted and torn and piled about in muddy confusion, the timbers of the mine suddenly showed in a perfect barricade, supplanted from behind by piles of muck and rocky refuse which left no opening to the chamber of the stope beyond. Harry's carbide went ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... is his habit of 'going off at a word.' Each thought is, as it were, barbed all round, and catches and draws into sight a multitude of others, but slightly related to the main purpose in hand. And this characteristic gives at first sight an appearance of confusion to his writings. But it is not confusion, it is richness. The luxuriant underwood which this fertile soil bears, as some tropical forest, does not choke the great trees, though ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... Pyramids, Chicago,—all would be lost if tumbled into it." Naturally enough, illustrations as to size are sought for among other canons like or unlike it, with the common result of worse confounding confusion. The prudent keep silence. It was once said that the "Grand Canon could put a dozen Yosemites in ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir

... of the court, notwithstanding her austerity of manners, she recognized the king at the first glance, by the respect which those present exhibited for him, as well as by the imperious and authoritative way in which he had thrown the whole establishment into confusion. As soon as she saw the king, she retired to her own apartments, in order to avoid compromising her dignity. But, by one of the nuns, she sent various cordials—Hungary water, etc., etc.—and ordered ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... retreat, but an abominable flight, with such disorder and confusion that, had the English known it, three hundred men sent after us would have been sufficient to have cut all our army to pieces. The soldiers were all mixed, scattered, dispersed, and running as hard as they could, as if the English army were ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... Jeanin, a canon of the cathedral at Olmutz, to accompany him to their village, called Liebava, where he had been appointed commissioner by the consistory of the bishopric, to take information concerning the fact of a certain famous vampire, which had caused much confusion in this village of Liebava ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... effects of which not even the discipline of the legions was a preventive. At the first Battle of Philippi, the young Octavius came near being killed or captured, in consequence of the success of Brutus's attack, which had the effect of throwing his men into utter confusion, so that they fled in dismay. What a change would have taken place in the ocean-stream of history, had the future Augustus been slain or taken by the Republicans on that field on which the Roman Republic fell forever! But the success of Antonius over Cassius more than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... was confusion. The adherents of the deceased statesman looked on the Duke of Portland as their chief. The King placed Shelburne at the head of the Treasury. Fox, Lord John Cavendish, and Burke, immediately resigned ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... just the basic confusion, to give it a name. After a while the situation got more difficult, as I'll try to tell ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... the plain, casting their shadows of the sandy waste, so these two monuments or tombs appear upon the level scene of my uneventful past. Could I, then, have caught one glimpse adown the valley of the "Yet to be," what a different picture would have presented itself to my vision! A confusion of adventures, a panorama never ending, ever shifting, ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney

... to have happened was that the Spanish prisoners confined below had fired the ship before the squall came down, in the hope of being able to overpower their captors in the ensuing confusion, trusting to luck for the opportunity to extinguish the conflagration afterwards. The storm arising after they had set fire to the vessel, however, the wind had fanned the flames until she had become a raging fiery furnace fore-and-aft. And there ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... Willard, a pious minister of Boston, was cried out upon as a wizard in open court. Mrs. Hale, the wife of the minister of Beverly, was likewise accused. Philip English, a rich merchant of 5 Salem, found it necessary to take flight, leaving his property and business in confusion. But a short time afterward the Salem people were glad to invite ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... Anchises, was woo old to walk with the speed required, and AEneas took him upon his shoulders. Thus burdened, leading his son and followed by his wife, he made the best of his way out of the burning city; but in the confusion, his wife was swept ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... according to his understanding, would never become perfect grammarians. One may parse a word as a "verb," another the same word as an "adverb," another as a "participle," and if each were right according to his understanding, how could we have any fixed rules of grammar? All would be confusion and no one would know what is proper speech. Students to become efficient scholars must understand mathematics, astronomy, botany, etc., alike. Every volume written by man if understood rightly must ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... forms of vocational and professional education are not so strong in this respect as they should be. Again you say to me, What can education do when the spirit of the times speaks so strongly on the other side? But what is education for if it is not to preserve midst the chaos and confusion of troublous times the great truths that the race has wrung from its experience? How different might have been the fate of Rome, if Rome had possessed an educational system touching every child in the Empire, and if, during the years that witnessed her decay and downfall, ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... of, perhaps, the most beautifully situated of all railway stations, formerly called Glandovey Junction, but changed in recent years to Dovey Junction to avoid confusion with the adjacent Glandovey station, at the same time transformed into Glandyfi. Being only intended for changing trains the station is peculiar in having no exit, and the very few passengers who ever alight here for other purposes than entering another ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... multiplied right?—No. Yes, that was right. O, but he had blundered in subtraction! No, he had not; every figure was right. Ah! now he had reached the place where none of them knew what to do next. But he knew! Without pause or confusion, he moved on, through to the very last figure, which he made with a flourish. Moreover, he knew how to explain his work, just what he did, and why he did it. As he turned to take his seat, the admiring class, whose honor he had saved, broke into ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... heard my neighbour's door unbolted, As he went to earn his daily wages, And ere long I heard the waggons rumbling, And the city gates were also open'd, While the market-place, in ev'ry corner, Teem'd with life and bustle and confusion. ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... came Mrs. Stevenson's birthday, and, to her great surprise and confusion, it was made the occasion of a general fete in which the whole colony took part. She ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... a general shout of 'Bail up!' and I saw at once what sort of gentry they were. However, I didn't stop, but in the confusion dashed through. ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... confusion caused by the excited elements there was the sturdy little captain, calm and cool, and giving his orders with that clearness and decision which had always characterized him. Men were called for to go aloft and cut away the swaying wreck, and save ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... many journeys to and from London. What he sometimes saw there gave him much food for ample reflection. 'May 2nd. I went from Wotton to London, where I saw the furious and zelous people demolish that stately Crosse in Cheapside. On the 4th. I returned with no little regrett for the confusion that threatened us. Resolving to possess myself in some quiet if it might be, in a time of so great jealosy, I built by my Brother's permission a study, made a fishpond, an island, and some other solitudes and retirements, at Wotton, which gave the ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... Atlantic. With these various packages every part of the floor was occupied, and I looked in vain for a spot on which to stretch myself. A better light might have enabled me to discover such a place; but the tallow candle, guttering down the sides of an empty champagne-bottle, but dimly lit up the confusion. It just sufficed to guide me to the only occupant of the place, upon whose sombre face the light ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... delightful confusion: trunks were being carried off, last packings attended to, every one was visiting every one else, and every one was doing her best to make her voice ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... placed under a canopy hung round with clusters of real grapes and vine-leaves, so artfully disposed as to appear of the natural growth. These served to refresh both the eye and mouth. The performers of the ball went up to this part of the saloon, in couples, processionally, to avoid confusion. Each youth took care to help his partner to what she liked best, and then returned, in the same regular manner, to the other end of the room, when they served what remained to the rest of the spectators. After ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... and innocent in Sadie's attitude and expression that Whitney Barnes was charmed. It also tickled his soul to see how thoroughly his friend was stumped. So to add to Travers's confusion he chimed in: ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... Sunday in the Park, and which he believed to be valuable. He stripped his blanket from his bed and rolled up in it all these objects, together with the canvas sack, fastening the roll with a half hitch such as miners use, the instincts of the old-time car-boy coming back to him in his present confusion of mind. He changed his pipe and his knife—a huge jackknife with a yellowed bone handle—to the pockets ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... heritable, and a great soul showing suddenly in the dusk of a dull race contributes nothing of its essential quality to the issue of the body it has made its house. The stews of a mill town may suddenly be illuminated by the radiance of a divine soul, to the amazement of profligate parents and the confusion of eugenists; but unless the unsolvable mystery of life has determined on a new species, and so by a sudden influx of the elan vital cuts off the line of physical succession and establishes one that is wholly new, then the brightness dies ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... brought with him from abroad, and he designed a tower to be constructed at one corner of it, similar to, if not so lofty as that of the Villa Manteuto. This occupied him and the dilatory Concord carpenter for nearly half a year; and meanwhile chaos and confusion reigned supreme. There was no one whose ears could be more severely offended by the music of the carpenter's box and the mason's trowel than Hawthorne, and he knew not whether to fly his home or remain in it. Not until all this was over could he think ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... extinguished. There was a hurried confusion of bare feet moving rapidly across the stone floor. There was a loud crash as of a heavy weight of stone falling upon stone, and then surrounding the ape-man naught but the darkness and the silence of ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... event. The following days were still colder; there was a penetrating fog, and the wind scattered the piled-up snow; it became difficult to see whether the whirlwinds began in the air or on the ice-fields; confusion reigned. ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... two or more of the principal groups. It is this fact that renders so extremely difficult the attempt to classify the tribes and sub-tribes in any consistent and significant fashion, and to which is largely due the confusion that reigns in most of the accounts hitherto given of the inhabitants of Borneo. We believe, however, that the divisions marked by the six names we have used, namely, Kayan, Kenyah, Klemantan, Murut, Punan, and Iban, are true or natural ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... and Aunt Becky had to consider just for a second or two, staring straight at the young lady through the crimson damask curtains. 'You have—you—you—why, what have you done? and she covered her confusion by stooping down to adjust the heel of ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... I am simply trying to fit together again the puzzle-picture of my life, dumped out in terrible confusion in Edith's sunken garden, underneath a full September moon ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty

... the Turret in a smart trot, without appearing to apprehend any danger. The first shot was fired by young Mr. Tyrrell, which mortally wounded Farrell, and being followed by a general discharge from the rest among the body of the Cavalry, threw them into great confusion, in which state they fled out of the reach of the firing. The Infantry however coming up, many of them contrived to pass the Turret under cover of the wall, and numbers were posted behind a thick hedge on the opposite side of the road, from which ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones

... brother of Napoleon—or, rather, from the various juntas or bodies formed in Spain to oppose the French domination, came claims for jurisdiction over Mexico, causing confusion in the minds of the colonists, which culminated in the conspiracies of Queretero and Hidalgo's cry, and the proclamation of Independence on September 15, 1810. Under Hidalgo an insurgent band seized various places in the central ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... can whip the Jellies up to the point of causing a good deal of initial trouble and confusion, and then the three of us move in at the proper moment after the attack from outside is under way," said Dark. "We might even turn the Toughs loose on ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... temper and behaviour? But the whole place was angry! Or was it that the creatures dwelling in it, the wind, and the trees, and the clouds, and the river, had all quarrelled, each with all the rest? Would the whole come to confusion and disorder? But, as she gazed wondering and disquieted, the moon, larger than ever she had seen her, came lifting herself above the horizon to look, broad and red, as if she, too, were swollen with anger that she had been roused from her rest by their noise, and compelled ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... that narrow mountain road was becoming more than flesh and blood could stand, the Moros broke in pell-mell confusion. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock

... that again and again when they were tired of sparring together they returned to this subject, always in amiable tones and with pleasant looks, and always reducing the poor Fraeulein to a pitiable state of confusion; which state being reached, and she gone out to hide her misery in her bedroom, they would look at each other ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... been touched and you forget everything; then she sobs while she speaks, and speaks while she sobs. This is a sort of machine eloquence; she deafens you with her tears, with her words which come jerked out in confusion; it is the clapper and ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... on the western front. The line of least resistance, which is Poland, would prove incomparably more attractive. And then? The absence of Allied troops in eastern Europe was one of the principal causes of the wars, tumults, and chaotic confusion that had made nervous people tremble for the fate of civilization in the interval between the conclusion of the armistice and the ratification of the Treaty. In the future the absence of strongly situated Allies there, if ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... rowed back or to the opposite shore. If they had been prepared for their difficulty they could have easily worked out a solution to the little poser at any other time. But they were now so hurried and excited in their flight that the confusion they soon got into was exceedingly amusing—or would have been to ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... my sheep out of my hand," He indicates that He is no idle spectator of woe, but that mighty and incessant strife is going on. The devil incites his tools to disturb the Church or the political commonwealth, that boundless confusion may enter, followed by heathenish desolation. But the Son of God, who holds in His hands, as it were, the congregation of those who call upon His name, hurls back the devils by His infinite power, conquers and chases them thence, and will one day shut them up in the prison of hell, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various

... to confirm what he had heard concerning his grandson's character. Thrown together in disorderly confusion were bottles of wine and whiskey; soiled packs of cards; a dice-box with dice; a box of poker chips, several revolvers, and a number of photographs and paper-covered books at which the old gentleman merely glanced to ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... personal expenses. To get money out of so experienced a debtor as the Count, a creditor should really be in a position uncommonly difficult to reach; it is a question of being creditor and debtor both, for then you are legally entitled to work the confusion of rights, in ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac

... of things which would reduce him from the meridian of greatness and glory to the obscurity of private life, he only wished to change the theatre of war, and by a partial peace to prolong the general confusion. The friendship of Denmark, whose neighbour he had become as Duke of Mecklenburgh, was most important for the success of his ambitious views; and he resolved, even at the sacrifice of his sovereign's interests, to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Mr. Ryder recovered himself in some confusion. "Two or three years ago a lawyer shark from New York City—a man named North, I remember—come here asking an all-fired lot o' questions, and only last fall another feller turned up on the same game. I told 'em all I knew, which warn't ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... Day not only the best Officer, but the richest I have in all my Court. If my Word may be credited, I'll raise your Fortune as I have done his. Never was Trade brisker in our Way; for Moabdar, is knock'd on the Head, and all Babylon in the utmost Confusion. Moabdar kill'd, said you! cry'd Zadig, and pray, Sir, what is become of his Royal Consort, Astarte? I know nothing at all of that Affair, replied Arbogad, all that I have to say, is, that Moabdar became a perfect Madman, and had his Brains beat out; that all ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... But how could you reply that there would be another comptroller-general in a year's time, and run the risk of compromising the oracle? I never dare to say things like that; I love the oracle too well to expose it to shame and confusion." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... there was a long, very long, letter from Lucy, too! How it happened that I did not recognise her pretty, delicate, lady-like handwriting, is more than I can say; but the direction had been overlooked in the confusion of receiving so many letters together. That direction, too, gave me pleasure. It was to "Miles Wallingford, Esquire;" whereas the three others were addressed to "Capt. Miles Wallingford, ship Dawn, New York." Now a ship-master is no more entitled, in strict usage, to be called a "captain," ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... nature it is intimately allied to the old Catholic church, which was in fact its child. As a matter of taste it may be objectionable to speak of the Jewish church, but as a matter of history it is not inaccurate, and the name is perhaps preferable to that of theocracy, which shelters such confusion ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... suddenly, with an inspiration born of despair, he ordered his ammunition waggons to be blown up. The Kersales, who were about to seize them, vanished in the explosion, which scattered a hail of stones and debris far and wide. Under cover of the smoke and general confusion, Ali succeeded in withdrawing his men to the shelter of the guns of his castle of Litharitza, where he continued the fight in order to give time to the fugitives to rally, and to give the support he had promised ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... and Jean and Guy were able to cross the barricade before the foremost of their pursuers reached them. There had indeed been confusion below, for several of those who had first climbed the barricade had, instead of pressing hotly in pursuit, run along the hall and through the door into the shop, in their eagerness to be the first to seize upon the plunder. They expected the ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... tent-pegs and ropes, they ran, putting on an extra spurt every time they glanced over their shoulders and saw the women advancing upon them in mass formation. Changing was soon accomplished, not without a good deal of confusion, mixing up of garments, and splashing water around, but when they were finally all dressed and again in khaki uniforms smiles of satisfaction spread over clean and shiny faces as they glanced down at neat uniforms and well-polished boots—Smoke-o that day had ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... the shuffle up he had changed the order of his companions and as he opened his eyes for the second time he found himself beside an old lady, generously skirted and shawled, who wore a hat from which the bare quills of several ostrich feathers pointed this way and that in raffish confusion. In her lap was a sack containing her various possessions. Richard watched dreamily as she emptied its contents upon the pavement and sorted them out in some kind of order. The proceeding was vaguely reminiscent of a barrack ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... accepted, and by a "majority of the convention and multitudes of private citizens" he was requested to withdraw it. In this request I united, for I could see no possibility of improvement under any governor that the convention—a very conservative body—might elect, while the result might be confusion worse confounded. ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... seemed to receive a shock, and he felt himself sinking lower than usual, while above the noise of the surf and the confusion of voices he ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... no cessation of the stir and turmoil in the great house, and amid it all Nell moved like a kind of good fairy, contriving to just keep the whole thing from smashing up in chaotic confusion. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... individuals. It confuses the whole scheme of redemption and makes a mystery out of Scriptures that are perfectly clear when proper limitations are made. Things addressed to a chosen few have been wrongly applied to all and great confusion has resulted therefrom. It is my purpose in this chapter to ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney

... strange. There seemed to be great crowds of them, and the murmur of many voices talking together. As she gradually awakened, she realised that the voices were real, and not a part of her dreams. There was a great hubbub, a fluttering of wings, and rustling of leaves and grass. Through all this confusion, odd sentences became clear to her drowsy senses. Such phrases as, "You'd better perch here?" "This isn't your place!" "Go over there!" "No! no! I'm sure I'm right! the Welcome Swallow says so." "Has anyone gone for the opossum?" "He says the Court ought to be ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... The present 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 classification it is to be hoped that in time many of the ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... outcomes Darwin watched the creatures of wood and field. Without revealing all his purpose he would set before this boy good and evil; the lesser good and the greater. He would use for high and holy ends the method which the tempter never tires of using for confusion. He would show this boy the kingdoms of the children of God, and the glories of them, and would promise them to him, not for a moment's shame ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... and, not breathed even then, stood looking down upon the river. The river at Cloisterham is sufficiently near the sea to throw up oftentimes a quantity of seaweed. An unusual quantity had come in with the last tide, and this, and the confusion of the water, and the restless dipping and flapping of the noisy gulls, and an angry light out seaward beyond the brown-sailed barges that were turning black, foreshadowed a stormy night. In his mind he was contrasting the wild and noisy sea with the quiet harbour of Minor Canon Corner, when ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... the shot from the merchantman continued to scream by. Job Howland was a gunner on the port side and the boy naturally lent his services to the one man aboard that he could call his friend. There was much bustle in the alley behind the closed ports but surprisingly little confusion was apparent. The discipline seemed better than at any time since the boy had been brought ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... were more tables than professors, some of the boards were presided over by the senior cadets. There was a little confusion, due to the entrance of so many new pupils, and then the Rovers were assigned to a table presided over by a senior named Ralph Mason, who was the major ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield

... how far my distemper of wandering was returned upon me, and I knew nothing of what he had in his thought to say, when that very morning, before he came to me, I had, in a great deal of confusion of thought, and revolving every part of my circumstances in my mind, come to this resolution, that I would go to Lisbon, and consult with my old sea-captain; and if it was rational and practicable, I would go and see the island ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... fighting began, her wagons were driven through a field of tall corn to an old homestead, while the shot whizzed thick around them. In the barnyard and among the corn lay torn and bleeding men—the worst cases, just brought from the places where they had fallen. All was in confusion, for the army medical supplies had not yet arrived, and the surgeons were trying to make bandages of corn husks. The new army nurse immediately had her supplies unloaded and hurried out to revive ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... Throned on a sort of dais, in the front bay window, was Grandma Kelly, a little shrivelled beaming old woman, in a crumpled, shining, black satin gown. Her hair was scanty, showing a wide bald parting, and to hear in all the confusion she was obliged occasionally to cup one hand behind her ear, but her snapping eyes were as bright as a monkey's and her lips, over toothless gums, worked constantly with a rotary motion as she talked ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests, but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... under the name of Eugenius IV. The first Consistory which he held was marked by a fearful accident, which people chose to consider as an evil omen. The floor of the hall gave way, and in the midst of the confusion that ensued a bishop was killed, and many persons grievously wounded. A discontented monk put about the report that Martin V. had died in possession of a considerable treasure; and the Colonnas, catching eagerly ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... naturally a tendency to confuse the two capacities not merely in the King's mind but in his opponents'; and some of the objections to the Stuarts' dispensing practice, which was exercised chiefly in the ecclesiastical sphere, seem due to this confusion. Parliament in fact, as soon as the Tudors were gone, began to apply common law and statute law limitations to the Crown's ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... use the Professor's language about slavery, "it is in vain, to contend is sin, and yet profess reverence for the Scriptures," being at war with and destroyed by the principles of the gospel. What sad confusion of thought the pro-slavery influences, to which some great divines have yielded, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... confusion of voices, hearing only the word "monk," thought his Grace was speaking of the monks' heads on the capitals of the pillars in the hall. So seeing two empty flasks, shouted, "Ay, that is for thee, monk!" and pitched them crash! crash! with such force up at the monks, that the pieces flew ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... went in and we followed. We heard sobs, screams, and excited conversation and saw a jostling, curious mob. People stepped on one another's toes, dug one another's ribs, cursed, and caused general confusion. ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... sot down again. Oh, the fearful excitement and confusion that rained down again! The president got up and tried to speak; the editor of the Auger talked wildly; Shakespeare Bobbet talked to himself incoherently, but Solomon Cypher's voice drowned 'em all out, as he kep' ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... how this daughter had been brought up, spoiled and pampered to the very limits of McGuire's indulgence and fortune, and he couldn't help holding her up in comparison with Beth, much to Peggy's detriment. For Beth was a lady to her finger tips, born to a natural gentility that put to confusion the mannerisms of the "smart" finishing school which had not succeeded in concealing the strain of a plebeian origin, and Beth's dropped g's and her quaint inversions and locutions were infinitely more pleasing to Peter than Miss Peggy's slang and self-assurance, which ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... that it is less the form of the government than the character of the governed which makes the difference between governments. I did not spare the life of the Emperor from any apprehension of consequences to me, for I had none. I knew the paths up the mountain at the back of the hotel, and before the confusion should have been overcome, and a pursuit organized, I could have been beyond danger, on my way to the Swiss frontier, for the pine woods came to the back door of the hotel; and beyond that, I never had the habit of thinking ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... reason for confusion on his part in meeting Crosbie. They had both loved Lily Dale. Crosbie might have been successful, but for his own fault. Eames had on one occasion been thrown into contact with him, and on that occasion had quarrelled with him and had beaten him, giving him a black eye, and ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... thrown on the tender mercies of the world,—her last friend gone, her last penny expended. She was buried out of his sight, not in the peaceful grave, with its tender associations, but buried alive in the living world; hopelessly hid in the huge, writhing confusion of humanity. He lingered in the folly of despair about those sordid lodgings in Diisseldorf, as one might circle vainly about the spot in the ocean where some pearl of ...
— Lost - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... Even as there was once a Christ, but no living Christ in the grave; yet the gates of hell shall not prevail to an utter overthrow thereof, no more than they prevailed to an utter overthrow of Christ; but as one did, so shall the other, revive, and rise again, to the utter confusion and destruction of their enemies: Yea, and as Christ, after his resurrection, was, as to this body, more glorious than he was before; so the witnesses, after their resurrection, shall be more spiritual, heavenly, and exact in all their ways, than they were before they were killed. Resurrections ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... crow. There seems to be some confusion between Hilarion, an obscure fourth-century Abbot, and Paul the Hermit, of whom it is related in his Life by S. Jerome that for sixty years he was daily provided with half a loaf of ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... had neither of us a desire to dwell upon the details. The island had been subject to the fury rain of a quenchless volcano. Whole villages had been overwhelmed and buried in the burning lava, and hundreds had met with a fiery death. In the midst of the mad confusion, Margot's calm presence and example inspired the strong, reassured the terrified, aided the feeble, and helped many on the way to safety. How many owed their lives to her, her cousin could not say, but that it was at the cost of her own, was only too ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... horrid din, the desperate struggle, the maddening ferocity, the frantic desperation, the confusion and self-abandonment of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The heavens were darkened with a tempest of missives. Bang! went the guns; whack! went the broadswords; thump! went the cudgels; crash! went the musket-stocks; blows, kicks, cuffs, scratches, black ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... be as stern as steel with her husband or her servants. She cowed Brigida into lumbering downstairs with the message. Mrs. Budlong went to the window to triumph over her victim's retreat in a panic of confusion. ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes

... result of the hot climate—and not an indication of the virtue of cleanliness. In this respect Captain Cook showed less acumen, for he remarks (II., 148) that "nothing appears to give them greater pleasure than personal cleanliness, to produce which they frequently bathe in ponds." His confusion of ideas is made apparent in the very next sentence, where he adds that the water in most of these ponds "stinks intolerably." That it is merely the desire for comfort and sport that induces the Polynesians to bathe so much is proved further by the attitude of the New Zealanders. Hawksworth ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... must have been repeated many times before Don could get rid of the dizzy feeling of confusion and reply,—"Yes; ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... his companions reached Philadelphia, where a cordial welcome awaited them. The confusion and difficulties into which they had fallen, by having to travel an indirect route, were fully explained, and to the hearty merriment of the Committee and strangers, the dilemma of their good Quaker friend Goodwin at Salem was alluded to. After a sojourn ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... in the confusion. But the struggle went on, accompanied by shouts, curses, and groans. One platoon of police agents charged down upon the ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... an instant, in the blind rush and confusion of it, she had lost sight of John. She had turned the car round and left it with its nose pointing towards Ghent. Trixie Rankin and the McClane men were at the front cars taking out the stretchers; John and McClane were going up the road. She had got out her own stretcher and was following ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair

... to itself and run for itself the machinery of industry? And, further, has the individualist never speculated upon this being still a triumphant expression of individualism,—of group individualism,—if the confusion ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... stillness, as if a heart had burst in giving it utterance. The people knew not whether to fly from the very sight of the house or to rush trembling in and search out the strange mystery. Amid their confusion and affright they were somewhat reassured by the appearance of their clergyman, a venerable patriarch, and equally a saint, who had taught them and their fathers the way to heaven for more than the space of an ordinary lifetime. He was a reverend figure with long white hair upon his shoulders, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... declared free in eight States of the Union, with two more States (Virginia and Louisiana) partly free and partly slave, and with the Border States still slave, we have a state of affairs resulting in interminable confusion, and which, in the very nature of things, can not continue to exist. Congress may find a way out of such confusion by an act of Compensated Emancipation, with the consent of these States and parts of States. God speed the circulation and signatures of the Women's ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... on, and see whom you can fright. Shame and confusion seize these shades of night! Ye thin and empty forms, am I your sport? [They smile. If you were flesh— You know you durst not use ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... to give them more definite and systematic expression, it is because paleontology is every day assuming a greater importance, and now requires to rest on a basis the firmness of which is thoroughly well assured. Among its fundamental conceptions, there must be no confusion between what is certain and what is more or less probable. [2] But, pending the construction of a surer foundation than paleontology now possesses, it may be instructive, assuming for the nonce the general correctness of the ordinary hypothesis of ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley

... 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 adrift upon the canvas, as a woman's ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... of being introduced to the widow, in the presence of her other suitors, put the finishing touch to the ploughman's confusion and annoyance. He felt ill at ease, and stood for some moments without venturing to turn his eyes on the fair one and ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... Wilson, had, for two days and two nights, followed in the wake of his army, not a single opportunity was afforded them of joining any portion of his command in a stealthy raid upon the habitations or any of the people, or of taking an advantage of the confusion and lawlessness which almost invariably surround the camp of an invader. From first to last, his troops observed with singular fidelity, his order that the lives and property of the Canadians not found in arms against him, should be held as most sacred. And in no instance, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... infinitesimal, should be banished from mathematical treatises and replaced by the words indefinite, indefinity, and indefinitesimal, mathematics would suffer no loss, while, by removing a perpetual source of confusion, metaphysics ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... carriages and on foot. The slow and solemn train went up the Haymarket, Coventry Street, Princes Street, and Oxford Street, passing thence along into Tottenham Court Road. At the corner of the latter thoroughfare great confusion was created by another funeral train which came up in an opposite direction. In the tumult that ensued, many were thrown down, among them the unknown poet, who followed in the rear of the procession. Clare ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... Over and above that innermost sanction and recognition it had the seal outside it of men's acknowledgment, it took its place among the existent, the normal, the expected. Ranny was not alone in his passion and confusion. He was companioned, here and now, in ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... Buchner, or Vogt, or Moleschott, were idealists (in the moral sense) of the highest order. Look around you and see whether the belief or non-belief (for the Agnostic is in the same predicament here) in spirit is a dividing-line in conduct. There is no ground in fact for the confusion, and it has wrought ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown



Words linked to "Confusion" :   bedlam, mental confusion, demoralisation, bafflement, hugger-mugger, jamais vu, haze, mistake, confusedness, obfuscation, puzzlement, embarrassment, pandemonium, shemozzle, chaos, state of mind, daze, fog, combination, babel, half-cock, error, disorder, cognitive state, schemozzle, befuddlement, mystification, bluster, distraction, disarray, bewilderment, fault, perplexity, compounding, confuse, topsy-turvydom, in great confusion, topsy-turvyness, demoralization, disorientation, discombobulation, muddiness



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