discomfit
/dɪsˈkʌmfɪt/verb
discomfit is a verb meaning “To embarrass (someone) greatly; to confuse; to perplex; to disconcert” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled D-I-S-C-O-M-F-I-T, and it appears about once in every 60 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does discomfit mean?
verb
- 1
To embarrass (someone) greatly; to confuse; to perplex; to disconcert.
Don't worry. Your joke did not really discomfit me.
- 2
rareTo defeat the plans or hopes of; to frustrate; disconcert.
- 3
archaicTo defeat completely; to rout.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce discomfit?
- /dɪsˈkʌmfɪt/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-discomfit.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of discomfit
- discomfits present, singular, he/she/it
- discomfiting participle, present
- discomfitting participle, present, rare
- discomfited participle, past
- discomfitted participle, past, rare
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is discomfit?
Discomfit appears about once in every 60 million words in written English, the 243,301st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Discomfit in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense to embarrass greatly:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | déconfire |
| German | Unbehagen bereiten, aus der Fassung bringen, beunruhigen |
| Spanish | desconcertar, incomodar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does discomfit come from?
From Middle English discomfiten, from Old French desconfit, past participle of desconfire (“to undo, to destroy”), from des- (“completely”), from Latin dis- + Old French confire (“to make”), from Latin cōnficiō (“to finish up, to destroy”), from com- (“with, together”) + faciō (“to do, to make”). Later sense of “to embarrass, to disconcert” due to confusion with unrelated discomfort.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).