Confondus - context in the sentence "Chaque fois qu'il franchissait le seuil d'une classe, élèves et professeurs confondus se taisaient à l'unisson"

Question

This was a very enjoyable (and challenging) dictée (but then I do have a fetish for the subjunctive for some reason!)

A vocabulary question, however. I can't quite see what function the word "confondus" is playing in the sentence "Chaque fois qu'il franchissait le seuil d'une classe, élèves et professeurs confondus se taisaient à l'unisson." Clearly the sense of this is something like "Whenever he crossed the threshold of a classroom, pupils and teachers alike fell silent together", but how does "confondu" function in this? I suppose I'm asking how it literally translates, so I can make sense of its idiomatic use...

Céline Pickard · Accepted Answer

Bonjour Jim,
Thank you for your kind comment about this exercise! I definitely had fun writing it ;-)
Here, "confondus" is a past participle used as an adjective and is from the verb "confondre" ( = to confuse / to foil / to baffle / to combine / to merge). Its literal meaning is here "pupils and teachers merged together". So, as you stated earlier, it means "pupils and teachers alike".
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Céline Pickard · Answer

Bonjour N. Hilary,
You are right that "confondu" can mean "overcome/speechless". But it doesn't fit in a sentence in the same way:

Confondu de honte, il avait bassé la tête. = Overwhelmed with shame, he (had) bent his head.
Je suis confondu de gratitude ! = I am overwhelmed with grateful !
Je suis confondu ! = I am speechless!

The Collins dictionary doesn't just mention "confounded" as a translation for "confondu". It also mentions the following which is in line with what I explained to Jim:
 
toutes catégories confondues = taking all categories together
This correlates with my explanation above. The expression "[...] et [...] confondu(e/s/es)" is a fixed idiomatic construction meaning "[...] and [...] together / combined / alike". The image behind it is exactly that "merge" sense: the two groups blend into one undifferentiated mass. Therefore, a good translation of "élèves et professeurs confondus" would be "students and teachers alike" as Jim's suggested.
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !

Jim Luetchford · Answer

Très aidant - merci Céline !

N. Hilary (Shamrockhill) Welsh · Answer

Hi Jim, I looked up "confondu" in Collins dictionary and it defines it as (=stupefait) "speechless, overcome".

The verb "confondre" is defined as: "to mix up, to confuse".

The reflexive verb, "se confondre" is defined as "to merge".

So, I took this to mean "students and teachers overcome, fell silent together".

Maybe Celine can shed some more light on this particular use of "confondu".

Merci et Bonne Continuation