Pronunciations
-
/pɹəˈfʌndɪfaɪ/
Verb
To make profound; to make a concept unnecessarily complicated.
Usage- Humorous
- often
- in post-19th-century uses
- Synonyms
- Examples
-
More examples (2)
But where's the use of invoking the Muses, when they are provoked by droppings of inspiration from a stone, in which the measure and the meaning are most happily profundified?
To profundify or to profundicate: A Borenverb used to denote the use of thesauric and other enrichment techniques to make a simple idea appear to be profound. […] Graduates of agricultural institutions tend to use "to profundicate" while graduates of ivy league schools tend to use "to profundify".
[…] Deutscher's technique throughout his verbose trilogy is to go back and forth in time to profundify a given phenomenon.
More examples (1)
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.
Said he: “She will never reach the optimum of her new pursuits unless she learns to profundify the justifications of her options.”
More examples (2)
Profundify or profundicate the speech. Use Roget's Thesaurus to make simple ideas seem profound.
Profundified words and phrases may dance around an issue without disturbing the neutral thought patterns of bureaucrats, politicians or members of boards of directors.