(v. t.) To darken; to obscure; to becloud; hence, to confuse; to bewilder.
Example Sentences:
(1) Serving on the government's Renewables Advisory Board from 2003 to 2006, I witnessed what cynics could easily have mistaken for a deliberate campaign of delay, obfuscation, and the parking, if not torpedoing, of good ideas coming from industry members of the board."
(2) This obfuscates insight into the role of DCIS in the development of invasive cancer of the breast.
(3) It seemed to me watching the film that the concept of the cloud was another great piece of airy obfuscation on the part of the internet corporations, who like to peddle the childlike and the playful in the way that banks used to flog you credit cards called Smile and Egg and Marbles and Goldfish, to encourage you not to think too hard about the small print (what could possibly go wrong?).
(4) The issues related to breast-feeding and problems of the puerperium are often obfuscated by the general but outdated practice of recommending cessation of lactation.
(5) Manafort says such allegations are “pure obfuscation” and that there are no ties between the Trump campaign and the regime of Vladimir Putin.
(6) Putin is a cunning negotiator with the skills of a KGB colonel, varying between brute force, charm and obfuscation.
(7) Child poverty is, if it means anything after all this obfuscation, a lack of resources.
(8) There were euphemisms (“an incident”, “an inappropriate action on my part”); there were vague and reassuring references to the woman (“she has accepted my apology”); and there were mind-your-own-business obfuscations (“a deeply personal business”).
(9) This new party’s swelling ranks want no more of the old politics, no more caution and obfuscation, no more talking tough while sneaking in good by stealth.
(10) The failure of William Hague to contact the family directly after Abbas's sudden disappearance in Syria is a terrible obfuscation of duty, but Sayeeda Warsi's telephone call to his mother in which she asserts that Fatima should be happy that she had returned her call but there was nothing the government could do is staggering in its lack of humanity.
(11) On Thursday, what was left of the obfuscation and denial was swept aside by Sir Peter Gibson, a retired appeal court judge.
(12) Likewise Jacques Anouma, whom the Sunday Times this month accused under parliamentary privilege of receiving $1.5m in bribes from the Qatar World Cup bid – which he denies – faces accusations in his homeland of obfuscation.
(13) Suspicion about politicians’ motives is compounded by the strong view that the media seek to obfuscate rather than clarify.
(14) At times it has obfuscated its message on the bailout but Syriza's most impressive sleight of hand has been its attempt to appeal to incompatible constituencies.
(15) In his rebuttal, he said that they were the "usual tired obfuscation and generalisation".
(16) MPs have condemned the "collective amnesia" and "deliberate obfuscation" by the News of the World in giving evidence to the Commons select committee inquiry into illegal phone hacking.
(17) Stop obfuscating, David Cameron: we need transparency now | Wes Streeting Read more He added: “If these leaks reveal that EU law has been broken, or loopholes in our legislation have been highlighted, the commission will take, of course, appropriate action immediately.” Moscovici, a former French finance minister who has been leading EU efforts on tax transparency, urged member states to throw their support behind his plans for a blacklist of tax havens – an idea dismissed last year by UK officials.
(18) The committee said it had "repeatedly encountered an unwillingness to provide the detailed information that we sought, claims of ignorance or lack of recall and deliberate obfuscation".
(19) That's the precise opposite of the cover-up, obfuscate-and-deny culture that served News International so balefully through the years of hacking denial.
(20) The committee accused the commissioner of "confusion and obfuscation" about how much information it holds on which public figures have been targeted by journalists and investigators trying to obtain information illegally.
Obsequious
Definition:
(a.) Promptly obedient, or submissive, to the will of another; compliant; yielding to the desires of another; devoted.
(a.) Servilely or meanly attentive; compliant to excess; cringing; fawning; as, obsequious flatterer, parasite.
(a.) Of or pertaining to obsequies; funereal.
Example Sentences:
(1) Labour too had "sort of fallen to their knees obsequiously towards very powerful vested interests in the media", he said.
(2) Families of China's 'disappeared' say country is a place of fear and panic Read more “It is so obsequious, it is just nauseating,” said Howie.
(3) This week I saw a hilarious clip of Trump beckoning Farage out of a crowd – a bit like Courteney Cox in the Dancing in the Dark video – and Farage telling him obsequiously he was “handing over the mantle”.
(4) In a piece for Salon , Greenwald said the blog’s favorable – “obsequious” was the word he used – coverage of justices was a way for Goldstein to curry favor for when he would argue before the court.
(5) They're still queuing up to take a bow, albeit less obsequiously than before.
(6) After King Phil repaid Labour for its obsequiousness by publicly backing the Tories in 2010, the new PM asked him to review government spending and procurement.
(7) Not for him the tiny calibrations of the text or the obsequious notes to his masters.
(8) There are people who have been absolute shits for the last 20 years who have suddenly become embarrassingly friendly and obsequious.
(9) And in the middle of it were the two Matthews, obsequiously yucking it up like a grotesque Fluck and Law parody of the coddled one-percent.
(10) The minister’s article reads like an obsequious sales pitch, but in that sense it is fairly consistent with the UK government’s approach to the Gulf states.
(11) Observing this process through the prism of private equity, there is a certain obsequiousness on behalf of politicians behind closed doors.
(12) First, nobly casting aside obsequious talk of titles following his recent appointment as president of the Queen's Bench Division, Leveson willingly confirmed that he was his old self: "I was always Brian Leveson."
(13) For a decade Britain has been obsequious towards China .
(14) Thus the same administration that resisted judicial disclosure pursuant to transparency laws leaked bits and pieces about the mission (always favorable to the president) to their favorite media message-carriers ; secretly met with and shoveled information to big Hollywood filmmakers planning a pre-election release of a film about the Bin Laden raid (now pushed back until December in the wake of the ensuing controversy, though the already-released film trailer – see below – will soon be inundating the nation); and then sat down with one of America's most obsequious, military-revering news anchors for an hour-long prime-time special that spoke of the raid with predictable awe but asked none of the hard questions about these lingering issues.
(15) Obsequiousness tends not to make good pictures of politicians – unless you happen to be Thomas Gainsborough or George Romney – and in a sense photographers are that unusual thing for them, a person just getting on with doing their job just as they might with anybody else.
(16) The all-too-familiar axis that has enabled massive civil liberties assaults by the Obama administration - blindly partisan progressive media outlets and particularly obsequious self-styled neutral journalists - instantly sprung into action here and wasted no time jumping to the defense of the US government.
(17) Most people, let alone journalists, would be far too embarrassed to admit they harbor such subservient, obsequious sentiments.
(18) That same article quoted the supremely obsequious former Obama adviser Harold Koh as hailing torture advocate and serial deceiver John Brennan as "a person of genuine moral rectitude" who ensures that the "kill list" is accompanied by moral struggle: "It's as though you had a priest with extremely strong moral values who was suddenly charged with leading a war," Koh said.
(19) Here's the White House list of who's meeting with the president: • Ajay Banga, MasterCard • Steve Bennett, Symantec • Wes Bush, Northrop Grumman • Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin • Renee James, Intel • Brian Moynihan, Bank of America • Joe Rigby, Pepco Holdings • Charlie Scharf, Visa 3.31pm GMT With exceptions , congressional interrogation of intelligence officials in hearings since the Snowden revelations in June has been obsequious conspiratorial deeply collegial .
(20) Tyranny becomes docile and subservient, and a soft totalitarianism prevails, as obsequious as a wine waiter.