confound
C1CEFR level
66/100Rarity: rare
TechnicalRegister
General verb
To distort an apparent relationship by allowing a hidden variable to influence both factors under study.
Age may confound the link between coffee and heart disease, since older people differ on both.
Business verb
To obscure a true relationship between variables by introducing an uncontrolled factor that distorts the analysis.
Seasonal demand confounded the analysis, making it hard to isolate the true effect of the price change.
Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.
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