obfuscate
verb
Mary Carroll
Did you know?
Try to Understand the Roots of Obfuscate
“Hello darkness, my old friend / I’ve come to talk with you again.” So begins the classic 1960s Simon and Garfunkel song “The Sound of Silence,” which was written by Paul Simon with a seemingly oxymoronic title that has obfuscated—that is, confused—ten thousand people, maybe more (probably a lot more) in the decades since. It confuses us too, but we’re not above being oxymoronic ourselves when we say that darkness, our old friend, shines a helpful light on the meaning of the word obfuscate. When obfuscate first came into use in the early 16th century, it was with the meaning “to throw into shadow.” This makes sense, since the word comes from the Latin obfuscāre (“to obscure or darken”) which itself comes in part from fuscus (“dark-colored”). The word was used for both figurative and literal darkening before developing the even more figurative senses of “to make more difficult to understand,” “to be evasive or unclear,” and “to confuse,” which in modern use are now more common.
Examples of obfuscate in a Sentence
Martin Zwilling, Forbes.com, 24 Apr. 2025
Could this trailer be obfuscating the surprise Return of a Che Diaz (Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez)) plot line for Miranda?
—Rebecca Alter, Vulture, 15 Apr. 2025
This helps obfuscate against security analysis and also reboots the malware with a system restart.
—Zak Doffman, Forbes.com, 8 Apr. 2025
Euphemisms are designed to obfuscate unpleasant truths.
—Zachariah Mampilly, Foreign Affairs, 1 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for obfuscate
Cite this Entry
“Obfuscate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obfuscate. Accessed 21 May. 2025.
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