Word of the Day

: November 17, 2016

obfuscate

verb AHB-fuh-skayt

What It Means

1 a : darken

b : to make obscure

2 : confuse

3 : to be evasive, unclear, or confusing

obfuscate in Context

"Time and again he has shifted, shaded or obfuscated his policy positions—piling on new ideas, which sometimes didn't fit with the old." — David Fahrenthold and Katie Zezima, The Washington Post, 23 Apr. 2016

"It was the trademark of San Francisco psychedelia to never put the year on a concert poster, and to obfuscate important details." — Sam Whiting, The San Francisco Chronicle, 14 Oct. 2016

Did You Know?

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.