Obfuscate

 WORD OF THE DAY

obfuscate / verb / AHB-fuh-skay

Definition
1a: to throw into shadow
1b: darken
c: to make obscure
2: confuse
3: to be evasive, unclear, or confusing

Examples
"Intelligence officials operate in an increasingly difficult environment, in which bad actors are deploying sophisticated technology to obfuscate their activities…."
— Will Hurd, The Dallas Morning News, 8 Sept. 2021

Some critics, including the company’s former head of civic integrity, the division that developed the metrics Facebook shared Tuesday, said on Twitter recently that these numbers can obfuscate the actual story.
— Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2021

Did You Know?
To obfuscate something means to make it so that it isn't clear or transparent, much like dirty water makes it hard to see to the bottom of a pond.
The verb shares its ob- root (meaning "over, completely") with obscure, another word that can refer to the act of concealing something or making it more difficult to see or understand.
The rest of obfuscate comes from Latin fuscus, which means "dark brown" and is distantly related to our word dusk.