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confabulate

[kuh n-fab-yuh-leyt]
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verb (used without object), con·fab·u·lat·ed, con·fab·u·lat·ing.
  1. to converse informally; chat.
  2. Psychiatry. to engage in confabulation.
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Origin of confabulate

1605–15; < Latin confābulātus (past participle of confābulārī to talk together), equivalent to con- con- + fābul(a) conversation (see fable) + -ātus -ate1
Related formscon·fab·u·la·tor, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for confabulate

Historical Examples

  • An' whut dem six ghostes do but stand round an' confabulate?

    Humorous Ghost Stories

    Dorothy Scarborough

  • Eden is not yet returned from Woodstock; I will confabulate with him.

  • In this manner, said my master, did the parson and I confabulate; and I set him down at his lodgings in the village.

  • She does not break the thread of a conversation by irrelevant questions or confabulate in an undertone with the servants.

  • Birds of a feather not only flock together, but, as every ornithologist knows full well, can confabulate.

British Dictionary definitions for confabulate

confabulate

verb (intr)
  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 trueSee also paramnesia
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Derived Formsconfabulation, nounconfabulator, nounconfabulatory, adjective

Word Origin

C17: from Latin confābulārī, from fābulārī to talk, from fābula a story; see fable
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for confabulate

v.

1610s, from confabulatus, past participle of Latin confabulari "to converse together," from com- "together" (see com-) + fabulari "to talk, chat," from fabula "a tale" (see fable). Psychiatric sense is from 1924.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper