Camouflage is the new word, and it means "fooling the enemy. Hereafter one word, a French word, will save all this needless writing and reading. Camouflage, also called cryptic coloration, is a defense or tactic that organisms use to disguise their appearance, usually to blend in with their surroundings. : behavior or artifice designed to deceive or hide. The rabbit's white fur acts as camouflage in the snow. Camouflage is a crucial survival tactic for many animals, including those that live underwater. Sometimes a whole paragraph was required to explain this military practice. : the disguising especially of military equipment or installations with paint, nets, or foliage. Until recently there was no one word in any language to explain this war trick. Since the war started the POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY has published photographs of big British and French field pieces covered with shrubbery, railway trains "painted out" of the landscape, and all kinds of devices to hide the guns, trains, and the roads from the eyes of enemy aircraft.
1917, noun, verb, and adjective, from French camoufler, in Parisian slang, "to disguise," from Italian camuffare "to disguise," which is of uncertain origin, perhaps a contraction of capo muffare "to muffle the head." The word was probably altered in French by influence of French camouflet "puff of smoke, smoke puffed into a sleeper's face" (itself of unknown origin) on the notion of "blow smoke in someone's face." The British navy in World War I called it dazzle-painting. An animal that uses camouflage is one that has adapted itself to look exactly like its surroundings or to blend in with it - it makes them very difficult to.
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