obfuscate · adj — obfuscated; darkened; obscured. It carries an Arena rating of 1541, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, obfuscate ranks #538 of 17,136 for Most Malleable Words, #1,726 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,466 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #2,557 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
obfuscate is pronounced /ˈɒbfəskeɪt/.
Why “obfuscate” is a great word
To deliberately make something unclear, confusing, or difficult to understand, often in order to conceal the truth. From the Latin ob- ("against, completely") + fuscō ("to darken"), first attested in English as a verb in 1536. Unlike "explain," which seeks the clarifying light, or "simplify," which pares down to the essential, to obfuscate is to willfully cultivate the shadow, thickening the verbal air. It is the lawyer's dense thicket of qualifying clauses, the politician's serpentine sentence that arrives precisely nowhere, and the bureaucrat's manual where every procedure is defined by three others you cannot locate—a quiet testament to the human preference for fog when the clear view is too costly to bear.
❧ Written by Lexicurio’s AI
Etymology
The adjective is first attested in 1487, in Middle English, the verb in 1536; either borrowed from Middle French obfusquer, offusquer, from Old French offusquer, or directly from Late Latin obfuscātus, offuscātus, the perfect passive participle of obfuscō, offuscō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from Latin ob- + fuscō (“to darken”). Doublet of dusken (“to darken, make obscure”).
adj
- Obfuscated; darkened; obscured.e.g.“Also the vertues beynge in a cruell persone be nat only obfuscate or hyd : But also lyke wyse as norysshynge meates and drynkes in an sycke body” — 1531, Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governour […], London: […] Tho[mas] Bertheleti, →OCLC:
verb
- To make dark; to overshadow.
- To deliberately make more confusing in order to conceal the truth.e.g.“obfuscate facts”
- To alter code while preserving its behavior but concealing its structure and intent.e.g.“We need to obfuscate these classes before we ship the final release.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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