An Enchanted Place

This post is in response to Heena Rathore P.’s Word of the Week (WOW). This weekly challenge is a great way of improving your vocabulary. If you wish to participate, simply create a post with your word and leave a link in a comment on Heena’s WOW post.

Here’s my WOW for this week:

Word
obfuscate

Pronunciation
ob-fus-cate (ob-fuh-skeyt, ŏb′fə-skāt′)

Part of Speech
Verb

Related Forms
verbs: obfuscated, obfuscation, obfuscates
adjective: obfuscating
nouns: obfuscation

Meaning
1) to make so confused or opaque that it is difficult to understand
2) to darken or make indistinct

Word Origin
First used in 16th century: from Latin ob- (intensive) + fuscāre, meaning ‘to blacken’, a derivative of fuscus , meaning ‘dark’.

Synonyms
1) baffle, befuddle, bewilder, complicate, conceal, confuse, fuddle, muddle, stupify, perplex, puzzle
2) becloud, bedim, befog, blear, blur, cloud, conceal, dim, dull, eclipse, fog, gloom, mist, obscure, overcast, overshadow, shadow

Antonyms
1) clarify, clear up, elucidate, explicate, make clear
2) enlighten, illuminate, reveal,

Use in a Sentence
1) The company’s legal department had obfuscated the facts to such an extent that Harold signed the contract unaware of the full cost of his actions.

2) Jamie always took care to obfuscate the number plates when sharing pictures of her classic cars on the internet.