camouflage

Etymology

Borrowed 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”).

noun

1. A disguise or covering up.
2. The act of disguising.
3. (military) The use of natural or artificial material on personnel, objects, or tactical positions with the aim of confusing, misleading, or evading the enemy.
4. (textiles) 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.
5. (biology) Resemblance of an organism to its surroundings for avoiding detection.
   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. 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, pages 206–7
6. Clothes made from camouflage fabric, for concealment in combat or hunting.

verb

1. To hide or disguise something by covering it up or changing the way it looks.
   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. 1960 January, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 26
   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. 1962 October, Brian Haresnape, “Focus on B.R. passenger stations”, in Modern Railways, pages 250–251