Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To talk casually; chat.
- v. Psychology To fill in gaps in one's memory with fabrications that one believes to be facts.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To talk familiarly together; chat; prattle.
Wiktionary
- v. To speak casually with; to chat.
- v. To confer.
- v. To fabricate memories in order to fill gaps in one's memory.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To talk familiarly together; to chat; to prattle.
WordNet 3.0
- v. have a conference in order to talk something over
- v. unconsciously replace fact with fantasy in one's memory
- v. talk socially without exchanging too much information
Etymologies
- Latin cōnfābulārī, cōnfābulāt- : com-, com- + fābulārī, to talk (from fābula, conversation; see fable).
Examples
“I sketch rather than describe in detail, letting the readers confabulate to fill in the whole picture.”
“Rogue artists who confabulate our notions of what art is and isn't are always going to come along, and we should be grateful for them, even encourage them.”
“Henry Sidgwick, you are not only highly selective in the questions you choose to answer, you evade answering the questions, prevaricate and confabulate.”
John Terry’s sacking as England captain tells us something interesting...
“Here are the facts that Spencer has managed to confabulate on his website's rendition of events:”
“I simply think she should not confabulate and reinvent her position.”
“Now you can confabulate about the inner workings of his mind when he composed Quixote if you want.”
“AP has the right, with the First Amendment, to report like this, and the crazy congressman has the right to confabulate his fantasies about Obama.”
Printing: GA Republican Rep. Broun and AP Confabulating a-- Folie � deux?
“People who confabulate are confronted directly often lash out at their questioners, which in President Bush's case could be a disaster for us all.”
“In order to justify their behavior they confabulate, make up a variety of lies in order to manage real and imagined questioning.”
“Untreated alcoholics confabulate; they make things up as they go along.”
Justin Frank: Here's to You, America: Bush's Most Public Secret
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘confabulate’.
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avfordomd's list
lexicon
copacetic, amiable, philanthropic, misanthropic, gregarious, vehement, parcel, congregate, paucity, passel, multitudinous, pulchritudinous and 98 more...
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see ulater, alligator
Discombobulate-enkindled 'ulate' words.
discombobulate, undulate, perambulate, ululate, tabulate, postulate, particulate, articulate, inarticulate, populate, manipulate, capitulate and 95 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 414 more...
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October Words-10031
During the month of October, post at least 10 new words to this list. Make sure you cite where you read the word (book/author/pg) and quote the context/sentence where you found it. If someone has a...
Obsequious, Desalination, exploit, banal, Euphony, Sycophant, Gypsy, Wry, asthenic, odious, digamy, captious and 1 more...
bookhling Some people mistake their capacity for confabulating the truth with superb reasoning. Aug 18, 2008