What does this word mean and where did it come from?

conflate is from Latin, conflare; it means to fuse or combine -- you too could find most definitions online by using http://www.onelook.com/

http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/

Conflation is also the fanning (of a fire), and in its 'fuse/blend' context can be used when combining variant texts to form a composite text.