Make Your Point > Archived Issues > DISCOMBOBULATE
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Here in Make Your Point, we study plenty of words with noble origins: words whose histories stretch back through French into Latin, and words that carry the shimmer of epic poems, grand mythologies, and nuanced philosophies.
Our word "discombobulate" is only a few hundreds years old. It probably arose as a slangy, silly version of a word like "disconcert" (meaning "to bother, to confuse, to throw someone out of whack").
Part of speech:
When you need to strike a lighthearted tone as you describe someone's frazzled state of confusion, rather than picking a formal word like "perplex," "discomfit," or "disconcert," pick the fun, goofy word "discombobulate."
"Back then he couldn't even pack a suitcase for himself, as discombobulated as his thoughts were."
Explain the meaning of "discombobulate" without saying "throw for a loop" or "fluster."
Fill in the blanks: "(Some totally bizarre book, show, movie, video, advertisement, song, album, performance, or other creation) makes for discombobulating (reading, viewing, or listening)."
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
1.
As we've seen, the precise opposite of DISCOMBOBULATE would be the playful nonce word COMBOBULATE. But a pretty close opposite of DISCOMBOBULATE could be
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. |