Jump to content

obscure

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

From Middle English obscure, from Old French obscur, from Latin obscūrus (“dark, dusky, indistinct”), from ob- +‎ *scūrus, from Proto-Italic *skoiros, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₃-. Doublet of oscuro.

Pronunciation

[edit]

Adjective

[edit]

obscure (comparative obscurer or more obscure, superlative obscurest or most obscure)

  1. Dark, faint or indistinct.
    Synonyms: (dark) cimmerian, dingy; (indistinct) fuzzy, ill-defined; see also Thesaurus:dark, Thesaurus:indistinct
    Antonyms: clear, distinct; see also Thesaurus:illuminated, Thesaurus:distinct
  2. Hidden, out of sight or inconspicuous.
    Synonyms: occluded, secluded; see also Thesaurus:hidden
    Antonyms: clear, straightforward; see also Thesaurus:apparent
  3. Difficult to understand; abstruse.
    Synonyms: fathomless, inscrutable; see also Thesaurus:incomprehensible
    Antonyms: clear; see also Thesaurus:comprehensible
    an obscure passage or inscription;    The speaker made obscure references to little-known literary works.
    • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC:
      The lock was of a kind that Watt could not pick. Watt could pick simple locks, but he could not pick obscure locks.
    • 2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
      The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.
  4. Not well-known.
    Synonyms: enigmatic, esoteric, mysterious; see also Thesaurus:arcane
    Antonyms: accessible, open, well-known; see also Thesaurus:famous
    • 1996 October 6, William Hathaway, “PARASITE LINKS MEN IN DARING VENTURE”, in Hartford Courant‎[1], archived from the original on 28 November 2020:
      Of all the medical monsters Peter Hotez could have set out to slay, the Yale University researcher could not have chosen a more wily and obscure villain than the hookworm.
    • 2024 August 4, @rainbowresort_, Twitter‎[2], archived from the original on 5 August 2024:
      i need to be REALLY careful to not use any obscure words. otherwise my tweets might end up on a wiktionary page
  5. Unknown or uncertain; unclear.
    Synonyms: ignote, unascertained, undiscovered; see also Thesaurus:unknown
    Antonyms: clear, known; see also Thesaurus:familiar
    The etymological roots of the word "blizzard" are obscure and open to debate.

Usage notes

[edit]
  • The comparative obscurer and superlative obscurest, though formed by valid rules for English, are less common than more obscure and most obscure.

Derived terms

[edit]
[edit]

Translations

[edit]

Verb

[edit]

obscure (third-person singular simple present obscures, present participle obscuring, simple past and past participle obscured)

  1. (transitive) To render obscure; to darken; to make dim; to keep in the dark; to hide; to make less visible, intelligible, legible, glorious, beautiful, or illustrious.
    Synonyms: becloud, bedarken, bedim, bemist
    Antonyms: belight, beshine; see also Thesaurus:illuminate
  2. (transitive) To hide, put out of sight etc.
    Synonyms: conceal, occult, secrete
    Antonyms: disclose, reveal, show; see also Thesaurus:reveal
    • 1957 August, H. P. White, “The Tonbridge-Hastings Line and its Traffic”, in Railway Magazine, page 529:
      It has been little altered over the years save for the addition of a platform awning which rather obscures the arcaded entrance to the booking hall.
    • 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:
      But Richmond […] appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw, peeping around the massive silver epergne that almost obscured him from her view, that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either.
    • 1961 December, “Planning the London Midland main-line electrification”, in Trains Illustrated, page 719:
      However, many people—including railwaymen—are only beginning to realise how great is the amount of civil engineering work necessary to achieve adequate clearances for high-voltage overhead equipment under bridges and tunnels; what is involved in the re-signalling needed to permit the increased throughput of traffic (in some places it is unavoidable, to afford better sighting of signals obscured by overhead electrical gear); [...].
    • 1994, Bill Watterson, Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat, page 62:
      I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity.
  3. (intransitive, obsolete) To conceal oneself; to hide.
    Synonyms: hide out, keep a low profile, lie low
    Antonyms: appear, show up

Translations

[edit]

Further reading

[edit]

Anagrams

[edit]

French

[edit]

Pronunciation

[edit]

Adjective

[edit]

obscure

  1. feminine singular of obscur

Anagrams

[edit]

Latin

[edit]

Adjective

[edit]

obscūre

  1. vocative masculine singular of obscūrus

References

[edit]
  • “obscure”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “obscure”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • “obscure”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=obscure&oldid=89354577"