conflate

verb

con·flate kən-ˈflāt

conflated; conflating; conflates

Synonyms of conflate

transitive verb

: to bring together : blend

Even more often, outsiders conflate the couple, and credit them with each other's characteristics.—Alison Lurie

This unsettling book—conflating journalism, personal reportage, sociology and philosophical inquiry …—Rosemary Mahoney

: confuse

Given its name, St. Thomas in Houston has on occasion been conflated with St. Thomas in Minnesota …—David Barron

: to combine (things, such as two versions of a text) into a composite whole

For there are two substantive texts, the quarto published in 1597 and the folio in 1623. Modern editions usually conflate the pair to produce what the editor judges to be the best and most plausible hybrid.—Bill Overton

Did you know?

We’re not just blowing hot air when we tell you that conflate can actually be traced back to the same roots as the English verb blow. Conflate comes from conflatus, a form of the Latin verb conflare (“to blow together, to fuse”), which was formed by combining the prefix com-, meaning “with” or “together,” with the Latin verb flare, meaning “to blow.” Blow’s ancestor, the Old English word blāwan, shares an ancestor with flare. When two or more things are conflated, they are figuratively “blown together” either by someone’s confusion or ingenuity. Other descendants of flare in English include flavor, inflate, and, well, flatulent.

Examples of conflate in a Sentence

be careful not to conflate gossip with real news the movie conflates documentary footage and dramatized reenactments so seamlessly and ingeniously that viewers may not know what is real and what is not

Recent Examples on the Web

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In her reasoning for opposing the spending measure, known as a continuing resolution, Delaney appeared to conflate it with a separate budget process known as reconciliation, in which House Republicans have proposed steep cuts to Medicaid. —Ramsey Touchberry, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 20 Mar. 2025 Others discovered red light still induced alertness during sleep, and the light’s lesser tendency to suppress melatonin when compared with blue light has likely been conflated with improving sleep, experts told CNN in a previous story. —Kristen Rogers, CNN, 9 Mar. 2025 Too often, organizations conflate narrow testing metrics with the more elusive range of forms of actual intelligence. —Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Stephen Henriques, TIME, 19 Feb. 2025 The president, however, appeared to conflate two systems, the nation’s air traffic control system and a navigation system for private jets, according to Forbes. —Alexis Simendinger, The Hill, 7 Feb. 2025 See All Example Sentences for conflate