confabulate

American  

[kuhn-fab-yuh-leyt] / kənˈfæb yəˌleɪt /

verb (used without object)

confabulated, confabulating

1. to converse informally; chat.

2. Psychiatry. to replace a gap in one's memory by a falsification that one believes to be true; engage in confabulation.

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confabulate British  

/ kənˈfæbjʊˌleɪt /

verb

1. to talk together; converse; chat

2. psychiatry to replace the gaps left by a disorder of the memory with imaginary remembered experiences consistently believed to be true See also paramnesia

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• confabulation
  noun
• confabulatory
  adjective
• confabulator
  noun

Etymology

Origin of confabulate

First recorded in 1600–10; from Latin confābulātus (past participle of confābulārī “to talk together, discuss”); see con- ( def. ), fable ( def. ), -ate ¹ ( def. )

Explanation

Confabulate is a fancy way of saying “talk.” If you’re feeling formal, you don’t chat with your best friend on the phone, you confabulate. Regular people talk, people wearing tuxedos and beaded evening gowns confabulate. Confabulate means to talk, but it also refers to creating a memory that’s unreal, like a fable, without being aware of it. If you suffer from memory loss, you might confabulate to fill in the blanks. The word comes from the Latin com- for "together" and fabulari for "to talk," which comes from fabula for "a tale." Whew. For a long time, confabulate just meant “to talk,” but the psychiatric sense came later.

Example Sentences

“We know people confabulate details in many situations, but it was neat to see this play out in the context of imagination,” McCoy says.

From Scientific American • Jul. 20, 2023

The two proud dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

Bored to death, both of us, we confabulate together huddled in shawls and greatcoats, each holding a charcoal pan to keep the fingers from being frostbitten.

From Alone by Douglas, Norman

I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau If birds confabulate or no; ’Tis clear that they were always able To hold discourse—at least in fable.

From Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 by Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham

Nor are their wanting outbreaks of genuine passion among the utmost extravagances of false sentiment—when momentarily heroes and heroines warm into men and women, and for a few sentences confabulate like flesh and blood.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 by Various