I've often heard the word "discombobulated" used. But I've never heard of something being "combobulated", and it's not in any dictionary I've looked at. If "combobulated" is not word, where did "discombobulated" come from?
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It's a slang (originally American) word of unknown origin that goes back well over a century. Probably just a fanciful alliteration of discommode, discomfit, discompose, etc. It certainly doesn't derive from some pre-existing word combobulate. I think normally you'd be understood if you tried to use that 'back-formation', but I don't think it will catch on. |
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It's a joke word based on "discomfort", "disconcert" etc which are based on the french 'dis' meaning apart or opposite. So if discomfort is undo-comfort and discombobulate is from the same sense you can have combolbulate as the opposite of whatever discombobulate is |
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