camouflage
Syllables: cam·ou·flage/ˈkæ.məˌflɑːʒ/
camouflage noun: a disguise or covering up.
Noun
camouflage (countable and uncountable, plural camouflages)
- A disguise or covering up.
- The act of disguising.
- The use of natural or artificial material on personnel, objects, or tactical positions with the aim of confusing, misleading, or evading the enemy.
- A pattern on clothing consisting of irregularly shaped patches that are either greenish/brownish, brownish/whitish, or bluish/whitish, as used by ground combat forces.
- The resemblance of an organism to its surroundings for avoiding detection.
- Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close[…]above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them. Many insects probably use this strategy, which is a close analogy to...2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, pages 206–7
- Clothes made from camouflage fabric, for concealment in combat or hunting.
Verb
camouflage (third-person singular simple present camouflages, present participle camouflaging, simple past and past participle camouflaged)
- To hide or disguise something by covering it up or changing its appearance.
- THE CONCISE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF WORLD RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVES. Edited by P. Ransome-Wallis. Hutchinson. 50s.
A gaudy jacket, remarkably out of keeping with the contents, camouflages the weightiest and meatiest work on a railway topic since the war.1960 January, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 26 - Elegant brick and stone buildings, with iron and glass canopies and decorative wooden scalloping and fencing—all evidencing care on the part of the architect to produce a pleasing, well-planned building—were submerged beneath a profusion of ill-conceived additions and camouflaged by vulgar paint...1962 October, Brian Haresnape, “Focus on B.R. passenger stations”, in Modern Railways, pages 250–251
- THE CONCISE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF WORLD RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVES. Edited by P. Ransome-Wallis. Hutchinson. 50s.
camouflage meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
camouflage in Tamil
- ஏமாற்று, மாற்றுக்கொள்
camouflage in Bengali
- ছদ্মবেশ
camouflage in Malayalam
- വഞ്ചന
camouflage in Kannada
- ಮರೆಮಾಡು, ಭ್ರಮೆಹುಟ್ಟಿಸು, ಕಣ್ಣಿಗೆ ಮಣ್ಣೆರಚು, ಸುಳಿವು ತಿಳಿಯದಂತೆ ವೇಷಹಾಕು, ಛದ್ಮವೇಷ ಧರಿಸು, ಸ್ವರೂಪವನ್ನು ಮರೆಮಾಚು
More languagesFewer languages
- camouflage in Arabic
- تَمْوِيه tamwīh
- camouflage in Indonesian
- kamuflase, samaran, penyamaran, berkamuflase
- camouflage in Persian
- استتار estetâr
- camouflage in Thai
- ลายพราง
Examples of camouflage in a sentence
- The mottled skin of the snake was a camouflage that helped it blend in with the shadows.
- Forest animals use leaf litter in a variety of ways, including as food, shelter, nesting material, bedding, and camouflage.
- The bird's eggs were speckled as camouflage.
Forms of camouflage
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | camouflages |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | camouflages |
| present participle | camouflaging |
| past participle | camouflaged |
| past | camouflaged |
Origin of camouflage
Unadapted borrowing from French camouflage, from camoufler (“to veil, disguise”), alteration (due to camouflet (“smoke blown in one's face”)) of Italian camuffare (“to muffle the head”), from ca- (from Italian capo (“head”)) + muffare (“to muffle”), from Medieval Latin muffula, muffla (“muff”). This Medieval Latin, from which there is also English muffle, is either derived from a Frankish *molfell (“soft garment made of hide”) from *mol (“softened, forworn”) (akin to Old High German molawēn (“to soften”), Middle High German molwic (“soft”)) + *fell (“hide, skin”), from Proto-Germanic *fellą (“skin, film, fleece”), or, an alternate etymology traces it to a Frankish *muffël (“a muff, wrap, envelope”) composed of *mauwa (“sleeve, wrap”) from Proto-Germanic *mawwō (“sleeve”) + *fell (“skin, hide”) from Proto-Germanic *fellą (“skin, film, fleece”).
Words formed from camouflage
Phrases with camouflage
Questions about camouflage
- What does camouflage mean?
- Camouflage means a disguise or covering up.
- What is camouflage in Tamil?
- Camouflage in Tamil is ஏமாற்று, மாற்றுக்கொள். See Camouflage meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is camouflage?
- Camouflage can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce camouflage?
- Camouflage is pronounced /ˈkæ.məˌflɑːʒ/.
- What is the plural of camouflage?
- The plural of camouflage is camouflages.
Words near camouflage in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: camouflage (page history and authors); camouflage (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Camouflage (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); camouflage (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); camouflage (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-camouflage.wav.
Cite this entry: “camouflage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/camouflage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.