Obfuscate: meaning and SAT practice

Obfuscate (verb) means: To make something unclear or intentionally confusing and hard to understand.

Obfuscate in a sentence

The company tried to obfuscate the truth about the product defect in their statement.

Similar: confuse, obscure, conceal, muddle. Opposite: clarify, explain.

SAT-style practice: what does “obfuscate” most nearly mean?

The company tried to obfuscate the truth about the product defect in their statement.

As used in the sentence, “obfuscate” most nearly means

  1. confuse
  2. strengthen
  3. defeat
  4. rant
Show the answer

Answer: A. “obfuscate” means: To make something unclear or intentionally confusing and hard to understand. “confuse” is the closest match in this sentence. The other choices are real SAT-level words, but none of them carries that meaning here.

On the digital SAT this is the “Words in Context” skill, about 7 of the 54 Reading and Writing questions. The test asks what a word means as used in the passage, so a word’s most common meaning is not always the answer. More of these, with full explanations, are on SAT Words in Context practice questions.

  • abstruse: Difficult to understand; obscure or complex in meaning.
  • arcane: Mysterious and understood by few people only.
  • cryptic: Mysterious and difficult to understand or interpret.
  • enigmatic: Mysterious and difficult to understand or explain.
  • esoteric: Intended for or likely to be understood by only a small group.
  • opaque: Not allowing light to pass through, not transparent.

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