Obfuscate

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈɒbfəskeɪt/

Definitions

1. To deliberately make something unclear, confusing, or difficult to understand
2. To make information or meaning unclear and difficult to interpret through intentional complexity or confusion
3. To cause a statement, idea, or situation to be difficult to understand by adding complexity or ambiguity

Etymology: Latin "fuscus" meant dark or dusky, and "obfuscare" meant to darken over or cast a shadow across something. English took the idea and made it a matter of meaning rather than light. The adjective appeared in Middle English in 1487, and the verb followed in 1536, so for centuries "obfuscate" could describe something literally dimmed before it came to mean something deliberately muddied. The word has a close relative in English that most speakers have never noticed. "Dusken," an older verb meaning to darken or make obscure, comes from the same Germanic root as "dusk," and it sits beside "obfuscate" as a doublet: two words with a shared ancestry that reached English by different routes. One came through Latin and French, the other through the native Germanic stock.

Synonyms: confuse, cloud, blur, muddle, bewilder

Antonyms: clarify, explain, illuminate, simplify, reveal