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.
Usage: 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.''