Confute, 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.
2 more senses
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."
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for confute; he lists it under refute.
Where he writes about it:
To refute and to confute are to answer so as to admit of no reply. — from refute
To refute a statement is to demonstrate its falsity by argument or countervailing proof; confute is substantially the same in meaning, tho differing in usage. — from refute
Refute applies either to arguments and opinions or to accusations; confute is not applied to accusations and charges, but to arguments or opinions. — from refute
Refute is not now applied to persons, but confute is in good use in this application; a person is confuted when his arguments are refuted. — from refute