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

• confabulation noun
• confabulator noun
• confabulatory adjective

Etymology

Origin of confabulate

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

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

The forest is their citadel, where, mounted on lofty trees waving in the breeze, they confabulate, and, as naturalists have often described, arm themselves with sticks and stones, and in conscious independence defy all intruders.

From The Emigrant's Lost Son or, Life Alone in the Forest by Anonymous

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

From Jane Eyre by Townsend, F. H.

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