Word.ws English Dictionary

discomfitting

discomfitting is the present participle and gerund of discomfit.

Meaning of discomfit

Verb

discomfit (third-person singular simple present discomfits, present participle discomfiting or (rare) discomfitting, simple past and past participle discomfited or (rare) discomfitted)

  1. (transitive) To embarrass (someone) greatly; to confuse; to perplex; to disconcert.
    • Don't worry. Your joke did not really discomfit me.
  2. (rare, transitive) To defeat the plans or hopes of; to frustrate; disconcert.
    • In these disguises, Maitland argued, he would certainly avoid recognition, and so discomfit any mischief planned by the enemies of Margaret.1886, Andrew Lang, chapter 10, in The Mark Of Cain
    Synonyms:
    foil, thwart
  3. (archaic, transitive) To defeat completely; to rout.
    • Claudius therefore leauing this Ile, paſſed into Pomonia the chiefeſt of all the Orkenies, where diſcomfiting ſuch as appeared abroad to make reſiſtance, he beſieged the king of thoſe Iles named Ganus, within a caſtell where he was withdrawen, [...]1585, John Hooker, “The Historie of Scotland, […]”, in The Second Volume of the Chronicles: […], London: […] Iohn Harison, George Bishop, Rafe Newberie, Henrie Denham, and Thomas Woodcocke, published...
    Synonyms:
    overthrow, vanquish

Questions about discomfitting

What is discomfitting the present participle and gerund of?
Discomfitting is the present participle and gerund of discomfit.

Words near discomfitting in the dictionary

  1. discomfiteth
  2. discomfiting
  3. discomfitingly
  4. discomfits
  5. discomfitted
  6. discomfitting
  7. discomfiture
  8. discomfitures
  9. discomfort
  10. discomfortable
  11. discomfortableness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: discomfitting (page history and authors); discomfit (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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