Word describing coloured patterns designed to hide an object by disrupting the human eye's ability to see the shape it is expecting as it 'breaks up' the usual shape of the object being hidden., usually worn by Army or other Defence Force personnel.

Many variants exist, each designed for the different terrains to hide in.

The word comes from a French word meaning 'Puff of Smoke'.

Following the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings in New York on September 11, 2001, soldiers in camouflage began showing up at airports in droves. The camouflage outfits they are using are not effective in hiding them in airports. They are also often seen wearing international orange vests over their camouflage outfits to make themselves, apparently, more visible.

Recommend design of new camouflage patterns containing vague pictures of drinking fountains, newspaper racks, and arrival/departure monitors so soldiers may more effectively blend in at airports. Also recommend not wearing international orange vests as they defeat the idea of camouflage.

Camouflage was a semi-popular synthpop (or synthiepop if you live in Deutschland) band that popped up in 1988 with their debut album Voices & Images.

Camouflage was formed by vocalist Heiko Maile and programmers/keyboardists Marcus Meyn and Oliver Kreyssig in Germany in 1984. Their first single, The Great Commandment, cracked the German charts and spread word of the band to the UK and the USA, where the track began receiving club play. Their heavily-influenced-by-Depeche Mode brand of synthpop was, overall, quite popular in Europe while it was around but never really caught on that much overseas, though you'd be hard-pressed to find an 80s dance night at any club that doesn't play The Great Commandment or a remix of it at least once in a while.

The rest of their catalogue looks like this: 1989's Methods of Silence, 1990's Meanwhile, 1993's Bodega Bohemia, and 1995's largely instrumental Spice Crackers. They haven't released anything other than a greatest hits compilation since 1995, and appear to have broken up, although Marcus and Oliver continue to work together by remixing other artists' tracks.