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| ob·scure [ əb skyr, ob skyr ] |
adjective (comparative ob·scur·er, superlative ob·scur·est) |
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| Definition: |
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1. hard to understand: difficult to understand because of not being fully or clearly expressed
  an obscure passage in the manuscript
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2. indistinct: not able to be seen or heard distinctly
Its outlines are obscure, but the object seems roughly cigar-shaped.
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3. unimportant or unknown: not important or well-known
an obscure portrait painter
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4. known to few people: unknown to most people, e.g. because of being hidden or remote
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5. dim: dark, shadowy, or clouded
an obscure corner of the hall
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6. linguistics unstressed: describes a vowel that has a neutral, unstressed pronunciation
(
technical
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transitive verb (past and past participle ob·scured, present participle ob·scur·ing, 3rd person present singular ob·scures) |
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| Definition: |
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1. make unclear: to make something unclear, indistinct, or hidden
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2. darken: to make something dark or cover something with cloud
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| [14th century. Via Old French< Latin obscurus "covered over" < -scurus "covered"] |
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| Word Key: Synonyms |
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obscure, abstruse, recondite, arcane, cryptic, enigmatic, esoteric
CORE MEANING: difficult to understand
obscure difficult to understand because of not being fully or clearly expressed;
a rather obscure branch of mathematics called graph theory
a notion which may at first seem somewhat obscure
abstruse not easy to understand, often because it involves specialist knowledge or is expressed in specialist language;
songs with abstruse titles
He is so occupied with abstruse ideas that he is incapable of coping with everyday activities.
recondite requiring a high degree of scholarship or specialist knowledge to be understood;
an excellent tutor, with an obvious knowledge of an often recondite subject
arcane requiring information that is secret or known only to a few people in order to be understood;
The current pay structure is arcane and outdated.
He had drawn several arcane symbols round the boundary of the circle.
cryptic deliberately mysterious or ambiguous and seeming to have a hidden meaning;
cryptic clues
a fax in cryptic language
enigmatic having a quality of mystery and ambiguity that makes it difficult to understand or interpret;
his enigmatic smile
the brilliant and enigmatic figure of Thomas à Becket
esoteric understood by or intended for only an initiated few;
He was employed as a church architect and was later dismissed because of his esoteric interest in Paganism and the occult.
dictionaries for more esoteric or specialist domains |
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