camouflage
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: biology
business
government
manufacturing
military
natural-sciences
politics
textiles
war
Etymology: Unadapted borrowing from French camouflage, from camoufler (“to veil, disguise”), alteration (due to camouflet (“smoke blown in one's face”)) of Italian camuffare (“to muffle the head”), from ca- (from Italian capo (“head”)) + muffare (“to muffle”), from Medieval Latin muffula, muffla (“muff”). This Medieval Latin, from which there is also English muffle, is either derived from a Frankish *molfell (“soft garment made of hide”) from *mol (“softened, forworn”) (akin to Old High German molawēn (“to soften”), Middle High German molwic (“soft”)) + *fell (“hide, skin”), from Proto-Germanic *fellą (“skin, film, fleece”), or, an alternate etymology traces it to a Frankish *muffël (“a muff, wrap, envelope”) composed of *mauwa (“sleeve, wrap”) from Proto-Germanic *mawwō (“sleeve”) + *fell (“skin, hide”) from Proto-Germanic *fellą (“skin, film, fleece”).
Inflected forms:
form: camouflages
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: camouflages
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: camouflaging
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: camouflaged
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: camouflaged
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A disguise or covering up.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The act of disguising.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The use of natural or artificial material on personnel, objects, or tactical positions with the aim of confusing, misleading, or evading the enemy.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A pattern on clothing consisting of irregularly shaped patches that are either greenish/brownish, brownish/whitish, or bluish/whitish, as used by ground combat forces.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The resemblance of an organism to its surroundings for avoiding detection.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close[…]above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them. Many insects probably use this strategy, which is a close analogy to crypsis in the visible world—camouflage and other methods for blending into one’s visual background.
gloss: Clothes made from camouflage fabric, for concealment in combat or hunting.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: To hide or disguise something by covering it up or changing its appearance.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: THE CONCISE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF WORLD RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVES. Edited by P. Ransome-Wallis. Hutchinson. 50s.
A gaudy jacket, remarkably out of keeping with the contents, camouflages the weightiest and meatiest work on a railway topic since the war.
Elegant brick and stone buildings, with iron and glass canopies and decorative wooden scalloping and fencing—all evidencing care on the part of the architect to produce a pleasing, well-planned building—were submerged beneath a profusion of ill-conceived additions and camouflaged by vulgar paint schemes; and the original conception was lost.
Related words: camoufleur
Derived words: active camouflage
anticamouflage
camo
Camotint
camouflage discipline
camouflage net
camouflage passport
camouflage tree
camouflagic
camouflanguage
dazzle camouflage
immunocamouflage
spamouflage
Translations: