conflation.

The merging of different ideas or things so their distinctions are lost or overlooked.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• conflation of two issues
• avoid conflation

On the page

The review challenged the conflation of popularity with quality.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Usually uncountable; no ordinary plural in this sense. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: analysis, critique. Commonness: moderately common.