The Collaborative International Dictionary
Confabulate \Con*fab"u*late\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Confabulated; p. pr. & vb. n. Confabulating.] [L. confabulatus, p. p. of confabulary, to converse together; con- + fabulary to speak, fr. fabul
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See Fable.] To talk familiarly together; to chat; to prattle.
I shall not ask Jean Jaques Rousseau If birds confabulate or no.
--Cowper.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To speak casually with; to chat. 2 (context intransitive English) To confer. 3 (context intransitive psychology English) To fabricate memories in order to fill gaps in one's memory.
WordNet
v. unconsciously replace fact with fantasy in one's memory
talk socially without exchanging too much information; "the men were sitting in the cafe and shooting the breeze" [syn: chew the fat, shoot the breeze, chat, confab, chitchat, chatter, chaffer, natter, gossip, jaw, claver, visit]
have a conference in order to talk something over; "We conferred about a plan of action" [syn: confer, confab, consult]
Usage examples of "confabulate".
There may simply have been a blank space there between the sound and the light, and she was confabulating something to fill it.
Being able to tell whether people are telling the truth or confabulating is what I do for a living, but I honestly thought—his body language, the irrelevant details.
Patients have a feeling they heard a sound, so they simply confabulate one out of whatever sound they heard last.
I thought you said you were supposed to tell what you saw in your NDE right away so you wouldn't forget or confabulate stuff.
And if it was a confabulation, why would I confabulate the Titanic, of all things?
If I confabulated it, why didn't I see an Angel of Light or a golden stairway?
You're not only confabulating, you aren't paying attention to what you're doing, she thought, turning the key in the ignition.
Or maybe it was the other way around, and she'd confabulated the Titanic from the ship on the cover of her textbook.
You're confabulating, she told herself sternly, and ran up the stairs to Peds.
I surely wouldn't have confabulated a detail that specific, she thought, punching in Kit's number, and then remembered Mr.
She'd have no proof she hadn't had advance knowledge of his death, that she hadn't talked to Kit first and then confabulated Mr.
Joanna said, "and since the body's damaged and its systems are slowly going under, it confabulates the Titanic.
Maisie must have accidentally mentioned his name, and, to cover, so her mother wouldn't find out he'd been there telling her about Joanna, she'd said something about the project, and her mother had confabulated it, through her powers of positive thinking, into a miracle cure.
She's had weeks to rationalize what she saw, he thought, to confabulate it into something that makes sense.
That he'd confabulated his NDE out of images from the movies and Joanna's NDEs.