conflate
/kənˈfleɪt/ verb, adjective, noun
Forms conflates conflating conflated
- verb To combine or mix together.
- verb (by extension) To fail to properly distinguish or keep separate (things); to mistakenly treat (them) as equivalent. ““Bacon was Lord Chancellor of England and the first European to experiment with gunpowder.” — “No, you are conflating Francis Bacon and Roger Bacon.””
- verb (by extension) To deliberately draw a false equivalence or association, typically in a tacit or implicit manner as propaganda and/or an intentional distortion or misrepresentation of the subject matter.
- adjective (biblical criticism) Combining elements from multiple versions of the same text.
- noun (biblical criticism) A conflate text, one which conflates multiple version of a text together.
Synonyms
mix blend coalesce commingle flux immix merge amalgamate fuse meld mix up lump together combine
Etymology
Attested since 1541: from Latin cōnflātus, past passive participle of cōnflō (“fuse, kindle, blow together”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “conflate”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details