"profundicate" meaning in English

See profundicate in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

IPA: /pɹəˈfʌndɪˌkeɪt/ Forms: profundicates [present, singular, third-person], profundicating [participle, present], profundicated [participle, past], profundicated [past]
Etymology: Latin profundus (“profound”) + -icate. Apparently coined by American humorist James Boren (1925–2010) in When in Doubt, Mumble: A Bureaucrat's Handbook, New York, N.Y.: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1972, →OCLC. Etymology templates: {{uder|en|la|profundus||profound}} Latin profundus (“profound”), {{suffix|en||icate}} + -icate Head templates: {{en-verb}} profundicate (third-person singular simple present profundicates, present participle profundicating, simple past and past participle profundicated)
  1. (rare) To make profound; to make a concept unnecessarily complicated. Wikipedia link: James Boren Tags: rare Synonyms: profundify

Inflected forms

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        "2": "la",
        "3": "profundus",
        "4": "",
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
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  "etymology_text": "Latin profundus (“profound”) + -icate. Apparently coined by American humorist James Boren (1925–2010) in When in Doubt, Mumble: A Bureaucrat's Handbook, New York, N.Y.: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1972, →OCLC.",
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    {
      "form": "profundicating",
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    {
      "form": "profundicated",
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    {
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          "ref": "1976, James H. Boren, The Bureaucratic Zoo: The Search for the Ultimate Mumble, McLean, Va.: EPM Publications, →ISBN, page 4:",
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          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "1979, The Proceedings – Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Annual Convention, Philadelphia, Penn.: Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, →ISSN, page 69:",
          "text": "You should learn to profundify and to profundicate. Those are Boren verbs; they're not in the dictionary yet, but we're working on it and we think we're going to make it. They're being used in Washington now and Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal; and a few others have picked it up.",
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          "ref": "1995 September 15, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, page E1:",
          "text": "Profundify or profundicate the speech. Use Roget's Thesaurus to make simple ideas seem profound.",
          "type": "quote"
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        {
          "ref": "2012, Eileen Gambrill, Propaganda in the Helping Professions, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 305:",
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        "(rare) To make profound; to make a concept unnecessarily complicated."
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        {
          "ref": "2012, Eileen Gambrill, Propaganda in the Helping Professions, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 305:",
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Download raw JSONL data for profundicate meaning in English (3.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-02 using wiktextract (b81b832 and 633533e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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