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

Or rather a group of clusters, so placed that a dozen or more housewives could stand at their respective doors, very nearly facing one another, and confabulate without greatly raising their voices.

From A Traveller in Little Things by Hudson, W. H. (William Henry)

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

From Jane Eyre by Townsend, F. H.

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