Word of the Day

: January 21, 2024

conflate

verb kun-FLAYT

What It Means

Two closely related meanings of the verb conflate are “to confuse,” i.e. “to fail to differentiate,” and “to blend or bring together.”

// Be careful not to conflate gossip with real news.

// The movie conflates documentary footage and dramatized reenactments so seamlessly and ingeniously that viewers may not know what is real and what is not.

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conflate in Context

“It’s long been a misnomer when independents are conflated with swing voters. In reality most so-called ‘independents’ say they vote mainly for one party, even though they call themselves independent. Only a relative handful of them—just a third—are truly independent and vote equally for either party over time.” — Anthony Salvanto et al., CBS News, 19 Sept. 2023

Did You Know?

We’re not just blowing hot air when we tell you that conflate can actually be traced back to the same roots as the English verb blow. Conflate comes from conflatus, a form of the Latin verb conflare (“to blow together, to fuse”), which was formed by combining the prefix com-, meaning “with” or “together,” with the Latin verb flare, meaning “to blow.” Blow’s ancestor, the Old English word blāwan, shares an ancestor with flare. When two or more things are conflated, they are figuratively “blown together” either by someone’s confusion or ingenuity. Other descendants of flare in English include flavor, inflate, and, well, flatulent.