obfuscate
UK/ˈɒbfəskeɪt//ˈɑbfəskeɪt/
obfuscate verb: to make dark; to overshadow.
Verb
obfuscate (third-person singular simple present obfuscates, present participle obfuscating, simple past and past participle obfuscated)
- To make dark; to overshadow.
- Synonyms:
- darken, eclipse, overshadow
- To deliberately make more confusing in order to conceal the truth.
- obfuscate facts
- Can weakness be really obfuscated?
- To alter code while preserving its behavior but concealing its structure and intent.
- We need to obfuscate these classes before we ship the final release.
Adjective
obfuscate (comparative more obfuscate, superlative most obfuscate)
- Obfuscated; darkened; obscured.
- 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 body1531, Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Governour […], London: […] Tho[mas] Bertheleti, →OCLC
obfuscate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
obfuscate in Tamil
- குழப்பு, தெளிவற்றதாக்கு, மறை
obfuscate in Urdu
- اندھیرا کرنا, تاریک بنانا
obfuscate in Bengali
- বিষয়টিকে বিভ্রান্তিকর, অস্পষ্ট করা
obfuscate in Malayalam
- confuse, obscure, blur
- ഇരുട്ടാക്കുക, ഇരുട്ടുകൊണ്ടു മൂടുക, മറയ്ക്കുക, കുഴയ്ക്കുക, അസ്പഷ്ടമാക്കുക, മങ്ങിക്കുക
More languagesFewer languages
- obfuscate in Arabic
- يُعَتّم yuʕattim
Examples of obfuscate in a sentence
- Before leaving the scene, the murderer set a fire in order to obfuscate any evidence of his identity.
- Truthful and transparent is great, but we don’t even have a coherent strategy to obfuscate.”2018 February 13, Anonymous White House Official, “White House reels as FBI director contradicts official claims about alleged abuser”, in...
Synonyms of obfuscate
Antonyms
Forms of obfuscate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | obfuscates |
| present participle | obfuscating |
| past participle | obfuscated |
| past | obfuscated |
| second-person singular present (archaic) | obfuscatest |
| second-person singular past (archaic) | obfuscatedst |
| third-person singular present (archaic) | obfuscateth |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more obfuscate |
| superlative | most obfuscate |
Origin of obfuscate
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”).
Words formed from obfuscate
Questions about obfuscate
- What does obfuscate mean?
- Obfuscate means to make dark; to overshadow.
- What is obfuscate in Tamil?
- Obfuscate in Tamil is குழப்பு, தெளிவற்றதாக்கு, மறை. See Obfuscate meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use obfuscate in a sentence?
- Before leaving the scene, the murderer set a fire in order to obfuscate any evidence of his identity.
- What part of speech is obfuscate?
- Obfuscate can be a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce obfuscate?
- Obfuscate is pronounced /ˈɒbfəskeɪt/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of obfuscate?
- The past tense of obfuscate is obfuscated.
Words near obfuscate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: obfuscate (page history and authors); obfuscate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); obfuscate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); obfuscate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); obfuscate (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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: en-us-obfuscate.ogg.
Cite this entry: “obfuscate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/obfuscate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.