Friday word: Obfuscate

[med_cat]

obfuscate, v. ob·fus·cate \ ˈäb-fə-ˌskāt ; äb-ˈfə-ˌskāt , əb- \

transitive verb
1 a :to throw into shadow :darken
b :to make obscure

obfuscate the issue

officials who … continue to obscure and obfuscate what happened —Mary Carroll

2 :confuse

obfuscate the reader

intransitive verb
:to be evasive, unclear, or confusing

The suspect often obfuscated during the interrogation.

First Known Use: 1536

Examples:

Behind the scenes, another drama is unfolding. Airlines not only obfuscate their prices on their own sites. They also refuse to share their fee information with third parties who could repurpose the information to offer apples-to-apples comparisons. Online travel agencies are understandably unhappy with that arrangement. ("As airline revenue from extra fees increases, so does consumer ire", Travel section, The Washington Post, Nov. 2, 2017)

(this is the article that gave me the idea to post this word :))

Politicians keep obfuscating the issues.

Their explanations only serve to obfuscate and confuse.

His character — obfuscating, unrepentant, defensive, rather unintelligent — is enough for one exhibit and should be treated in its own right.
—
andrew koenig, National Review, "Eichmann Revisited," 9 Sep. 2017
All of which served to confuse and obfuscate the transport mechanisms for information and ideas on Facebook.
—
alexis c. madrigal, The Atlantic, "What Facebook Did to American Democracy," 12 Oct. 2017
In the event that the target is tricked into double-clicking on an icon promising to unlock the document contents, however, obfuscated JavaScript copies malicious code into two separate files stored in two separate directories.
—
dan goodin, Ars Technica, "Fileless malware targeting US restaurants went undetected by most AV," 14 June 2017

Try to Understand the Roots of obfuscate

To obfuscate something means to make it so that it isn't clear or transparent, much like dirty water makes it hard to see to the bottom of a pond. The verb shares its ob- root (meaning "over, completely") with obscure, another word that can refer to the act of concealing something or making it more difficult to see or understand. The rest of obfuscate comes from Latin fuscus, which means "dark brown" and is distantly related to our word dusk.

Origin and Etymology
Late Latin obfuscatus, past participle of obfuscare, from Latin ob- in the way + fuscus dark brown

Synonyms
becloud, befog, blur, cloud, fog, muddy, confuse

Comments

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

One of my favorites -- I use it whenever I can.

[med_cat]

I'll have to start using it more :)