camouflage

1 of 3

noun

cam·​ou·​flage ˈka-mə-ˌfläzh 

-ˌfläj

1

: the disguising especially of military equipment or installations with paint, nets, or foliage

also : the disguise so applied

2

a

: concealment by means of disguise

The rabbit's white fur acts as camouflage in the snow.

b

: behavior or artifice designed to deceive or hide

hiding behind a camouflage of righteous indignation

camouflagic

ˌka-mə-ˈflä-zhik 

-jik

adjective

camouflage

2 of 3

verb

camouflaged; camouflaging

transitive verb

: to conceal or disguise by camouflage

The makeup camouflages blemishes.

intransitive verb

: to practice camouflage

camouflageable

ˈka-mə-ˌflä-zhə-bəl 

-jə-bəl

adjective

camouflage

3 of 3

adjective

: made in colors or patterns typical of camouflage

a camouflage jacket

Synonyms

Noun

• costume
• disguise
• guise

Verb

• cloak
• disguise
• dress up
• mask

Examples of camouflage in a Sentence

Noun

The army tanks were painted green and brown for camouflage.

The rabbit's white fur acts as a camouflage in the snow.

Rabbits use their white fur as camouflage in the snow.

Her so-called charity work was a camouflage for her own self-interest.

His tough attitude served as camouflage.

Verb

It was impossible to camouflage the facts.

camouflaged the military camp as a native village

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Crye loses out on valuable sales to unlicensed mills overseas that print copies of its patented camouflage, called MultiCam, on ponchos, pants, shirts and hats that sell on Amazon and other marketplaces without Crye’s permission. —Annie Palmer,katie Tarasov, CNBC, 25 Oct. 2024

Octopuses have often been thought to avoid other members of their species and prowl solo using camouflage. —Evan Bush, NBC News, 23 Sep. 2024

Verb

The rattler was coiled tightly and well camouflaged. —Kelli Bender, People.com, 2 Nov. 2024

But the emotional intensity of the story, coupled with the weekly episode schedule, can’t camouflage the unevenness of the season’s pace. —Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 4 Oct. 2024

Adjective

Replicas of Burberry’s gabardine and war-era trenches are on view in a circle of mannequins, which perch on an organic camouflage rug designed by British contemporary artist and frequent Burberry collaborator Tom Atton Moore. —Alia Akkam, Architectural Digest, 28 Oct. 2024

In that incident, a man called 911 to report that a woman, dressed in camouflage pants and a black T-shirt, was walking along Babcock Road near Medical Drive with a gun in her hand. —Emilie Eaton, San Antonio Express-News, 20 Oct. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Noun

borrowed from French, from camoufler "to disguise, make unrecognizable" (originally criminal argot, perhaps derivative from the base of camouflet "a practical joke performed by igniting a paper cornet and blowing the smoke from it into the nose of a sleeping person") + -age -age; camouflet, alteration (with replacement of the initial syllable by the expressive prefix ca-) of Middle French chault moufflet, from chault "warm" (going back to Latin calidus "hot, warm") + moufflet, presumably, "breath, puff of air," from moufl- (as in Middle French mouflart "with puffy cheeks," Walloon dialect moufler "to puff up the cheeks") + -et -et entry 1; moufl- is an expressive base perhaps borrowed from a West Germanic etymon, whence late Middle High German muffeln "to grumble, mutter," Swiss German müffele "to chew slowly," Middle Dutch moffelaer "braggart, glutton" — more at cauldron

Note: This etymology of French camoufler is preferred by Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (vol. 16, p. 575) and Bloch and Wartburg's Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 6th edition, 1975 ("… l'idée de «fumée» pouvant très bien servir de base à un mot au sens de «déguiser»" — "the notion of 'smoke' being very well capable of serving as the base for a word with the sense 'to disguise'"). It is cited more recently by Trésor de la langue française. Earlier etymologists (Gamillscheg, Dauzat), as well as Gaston Esnault, compiler of Dictionnaire des argots (Paris, 1965), believed that camoufler was a loan from Italian camuffare "to feign, conceal, disguise, mask," which is remarkably close in both form and sense. Esnault dates the earliest occurrence of camoufler, as a reflexive verb ("to assume a disguise"), to 1821. The Italian verb is much older, first occurring in the fourteenth century. Lessico etimologico italiano places it under *camāre, a variant of *carmāre "to cast a spell, charm" with -rm- assimilated to -m- (for other ideas on the origin of camuffare see M. Cortelazzo and P. Zolli, Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana).

Verb

derivative of camouflage entry 1

Adjective

from attributive use of camouflage entry 1

First Known Use

Noun

1885, in the meaning defined at sense 2a

Verb

1917, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Adjective

1918, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

camouflage

1 of 2 noun

cam·​ou·​flage ˈkam-ə-ˌfläzh 

-ˌfläj

1

: the hiding or disguising of something by covering it up or changing the way it looks

2

: the material (as paint or leaves and branches) used for camouflage

camouflage

2 of 2 verb

camouflaged; camouflaging

: to hide or disguise by camouflage