Discomfit

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /dɪsˈkʌmfɪt/

Definitions

1. To cause someone to feel uneasy or embarrassed by confusion or awkwardness ; to defeat or thwart someone's plans or efforts thoroughly
2. To unsettle or embarrass by causing confusion or loss of composure ; to overcome an opponent decisively and cause frustration
3. To create discomfort or self-consciousness by inducing confusion or embarrassment ; to bring about a complete defeat or frustration of a person or plan

Etymology: Discomfit once meant to defeat utterly, not to make someone uneasy. Its ancestor in Old French, "desconfit", was the past participle of "desconfire", "to undo, to destroy", built from "des-" meaning "completely" and "confire", which came from Latin "conficere", "to finish up, to destroy". A discomfited army in the Middle Ages was a beaten army, and the word carried that military sense into Middle English as "discomfiten". The shift to the modern meaning was driven by a mix-up. Over time, speakers began to associate the word with "discomfort", a word of unrelated origin, and it drifted from defeating someone to disconcerting them. The result is that the word now sounds like a gentle social jolt, even though its history is one of total ruin.

Synonyms: disconcert, embarrass, frustrate, thwart, unsettle

Antonyms: assist, comfort, encourage, support, succeed