conflate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
conflates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
conflated,
past participle, past
-
conflating
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
conflatesimple
-
conflatessimple
-
have conflatedperfect
-
has conflatedperfect
-
am conflatingprogressive
-
are conflatingprogressive
-
is conflatingprogressive
-
have been conflatingperfect progressive
-
has been conflatingperfect progressive
Past
-
conflatedsimple
-
had conflatedperfect
-
was conflatingprogressive
-
were conflatingprogressive
-
had been conflatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of conflate
First recorded in 1600–10; from Latin conflātus “fused together,” past participle of conflāre “to fuse together,” from con- con- + flāre “to blow” ( see also blow 2)
Explanation
Conflate is a more formal way to say "mix together," and it's typically used for texts or ideas. You probably wouldn't say you conflated the ingredients for a cake, but if you blended two different stories together to make a new one, conflate would work. The verb conflate comes to us from the Latin word conflare, which literally means "to blow together." So think of using this word when you want to talk about two things getting thrown together and combined. Things that have been conflated often seem mixed up or confused. In fact, this word is also now sometimes used to mean "confuse or mix up."
Vocabulary lists containing conflate
Power Prefix: con-
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100 SAT words Beginning with "C"
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Four Power Prefixes: anti-, con-, inter-, and uni-.
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Whether you feel a moral obligation is a deeply personal choice, but you should not conflate compassion with unlimited responsibility.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
Law professors and pundits often conflate these things, but they are not the same.
From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2026
The branding has worked wonders for the studio’s reputation, leading diehard loyalists to conflate the production-and-distribution company with the art it finances — resulting in capsule collections of merch flying off the digital shelves.
From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2026
Don’t conflate Fama and his merry band of economists at the business school with the Chicago School of Economics, practitioners in the university’s economics department led by another Nobel laureate, Milton Friedman.
From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026
They will argue, and I agree, that the use of the term "property" can cause people mistakenly to conflate these rights with those to physical property.
From The Public Domain Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle
Kenyan civil servant Geoffrey Mosiria called for the series to be banned in Kenya, arguing that it conflates polygamy with cheating, fraud and abuse.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
But the entire debate conflates two quite different things.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
Descovich mentions a version of this, but in doing so conflates the word “truth” with “fact.”
From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2025
The criticism of the city conflates those, and that bothers me from a moral perspective.
From Slate ● Aug. 15, 2025
“The public conflates that with the truth: ‘They’re telling it like it is.’
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 19, 2025
Aside from moving the play to a new culture more than a century after it was originally set, Mr. Stone hews closely to Chekhov’s text, although he has eliminated or conflated a few minor characters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
Roasts are often conflated with competition, but that’s not what “Queer Roast” is.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
People have conflated the negative housing cycle with the strength of the business; the stock now trades for 22 times this year’s estimates.
From Barron's ● Apr. 9, 2026
The trip began with a bit of drama that some later conflated: Air Force One, enroute to Davos, had to turn around because of an electrical problem in the Boeing 747.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2026
The prize had nothing to do with the chicken heart, but articles about his award conflated the immortal chicken-heart cells with his transplantation work, and suddenly it sounded like he’d found the fountain of youth.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
Some calculate the metric aggressively to project strength, while others avoid citing a single headline figure to prevent conflating cash with credit lines.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
“There’s something fun about conflating the physical aches and pains of middle age with the more metaphysical aches and pains of middle age,” says Tropper.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
She said there had been "no clear reason" given for Holiday's ban, but that people were "conflating" it with her 2025 post.
From BBC ● May 12, 2026
“A central misperception among investors is conflating the fortunes of speculative crypto assets with the adoption trajectory of payment stablecoins,” Lau wrote.
From Barron's ● Mar. 16, 2026
But I always hear myself displacing the two languages, conflating them—maybe conflagrating them—for there’s so much rubbing and friction, a fire always threatens to blow up between the tongues.
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
