confabulation
Jan. 4th, 2010 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordconfabulation - n., talking informally, a chat, conversation; (Psych.) the filling in of gaps in memory with fabrications one believes are facts.
Two rather different meanings, apparently separately coined. The first senses have been used since around either 1600 or 1500 (dictionaries disagree), from Latin confabulātiōn, from confābulārī, to talk together, from con-, with + fābula, story, which last is from fārī, to speak + -bula, suffix of instrument. The last sense seems to have been coined from the deeper root, with the meaning of story/fable rather than talking, using con- in the sense of together rather than of in association with. I haven't been able to track down when this sense was coined, but it could be any time between the 1930s and 1970s, by which time it was definitely in use. Oh, and it's con-FAB-yu-LAY-shun, with a short first A.
---L.
Two rather different meanings, apparently separately coined. The first senses have been used since around either 1600 or 1500 (dictionaries disagree), from Latin confabulātiōn, from confābulārī, to talk together, from con-, with + fābula, story, which last is from fārī, to speak + -bula, suffix of instrument. The last sense seems to have been coined from the deeper root, with the meaning of story/fable rather than talking, using con- in the sense of together rather than of in association with. I haven't been able to track down when this sense was coined, but it could be any time between the 1930s and 1970s, by which time it was definitely in use. Oh, and it's con-FAB-yu-LAY-shun, with a short first A.
---L.
