obscure

1 of 3

adjective

ob·scure äb-ˈskyu̇r

əb-

: dark, dim

the obscure dusk of the shuttered room

: shrouded in or hidden by darkness

standing obscure in the deepest shade

: not clearly seen or easily distinguished : faint

obscure markings

: not readily understood or clearly expressed

also : mysterious

a slough of pretentious and obscure jargon

Philip Howard

: relatively unknown: such as

: remote, secluded

an obscure village

: not prominent or famous

an obscure poet

: constituting the unstressed vowel \ə\ or having unstressed \ə\ as its value

obscurely adverb

obscureness noun

obscure

2 of 3

verb

obscured; obscuring

transitive verb

: to make dark, dim, or indistinct

The soot on the lampshade obscured the light.

: to conceal or hide by or as if by covering

… snow on glaciers can obscure deep crevasses.

Tom Simon

: to reduce (a vowel) to the value \ə\

obscuration

ˌäb-skyu̇-ˈrā-shən

noun

obscure

3 of 3

noun

: obscurity

Choose the Right Synonym for obscure

obscure, dark, vague, enigmatic, cryptic, ambiguous, equivocal mean not clearly understandable.

obscure implies a hiding or veiling of meaning through some inadequacy of expression or withholding of full knowledge.

obscure poems

dark implies an imperfect or clouded revelation often with ominous or sinister suggestion.

muttered dark hints of revenge

vague implies a lack of clear formulation due to inadequate conception or consideration.

a vague sense of obligation

enigmatic stresses a puzzling, mystifying quality.

enigmatic occult writings

cryptic implies a purposely concealed meaning.

cryptic hints of hidden treasure

ambiguous applies to language capable of more than one interpretation.

an ambiguous directive

equivocal applies to language left open to differing interpretations with the intention of deceiving or evading.

moral precepts with equivocal phrasing

Example Sentences

Adjective Many people shared an obscure sense of gratification that [Dylan] Thomas had died young, as a poet should.

Adam Kirsch, New Yorker, 5 July 2004 But by 1830 the Boston Mission Board was desperate enough that it targeted an obscure sect of Oriental Christians, the Nestorians in faraway Iran, as a possibility for conversion.

Robert D. Kaplan, The Arabists, 1993 I knew they were special from their jeans and T-shirts, their knowing, ironic looks when obscure works of literature were referred to.

Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, 1991 Now at last Bacon could refer when he chose to his father's high position and his father's service—and no man could say it was done for self-aggrandizement, as a son who is obscure bespeaks the glory of past forebears.

Catherine Drinker Bowen, Francis Bacon, 1963 The movie is full of obscure references that only pop culture enthusiasts will understand. The origins of the language are obscure. Verb Throughout this book, the ground of fact becomes obscured entirely by a deep layer of speculative quicksand.

Helen Vendler, New Republic, 10 June 2002 But evening comes or even noon and some combination of nervous tensions obscures my memories of what whiskey costs me in the way of physical and intellectual well-being.

John Cheever, New Yorker, 13 Aug. 1990 … [Mr. Schuller's] … "Early Jazz" brought a sometimes Olympian precision to writing about an art that has often languished in the whale's belly of sociology, obscured by pretension and blubbery thinking.

Stanley Crouch, New York Times Book Review, 2 Apr. 1989 It was eight o'clock when we landed; we walked for a short time on the shore enjoying the transitory light, and then retired to the inn and contemplated the lovely scene of waters, woods, and mountains, obscured in darkness, yet still displaying their black outlines.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818 The true history has been obscured by legends about what happened. They accused the company of trying to obscure the fact that the product poses a health risk. Noun … who shall … through the palpable obscure find out his uncouth way … ?

John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667 See More

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

The hire of former World Trade Organization director-general Peter Sutherland as an adviser in 2000 gave the obscure company instant credibility with wholesalers and retailers abroad.

Marc Levinson, WSJ, 28 Nov. 2022 This once-obscure drug access program began modestly, but has grown to be the second-largest federal prescription drug program, behind Medicare Part D.

John Michael O'brien, STAT, 31 Oct. 2022 Powell and Doug Logan, the chief executive of a then-obscure firm called Cyber Ninjas, were also on emails relating to those and other examinations.

Emma Brown And Jon Swaine, Anchorage Daily News, 28 Oct. 2022 That once-obscure president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is an international hero leading a surprisingly successful counteroffensive, thanks in large part to U.S. military aid.

Janet Hook, Washington Post, 19 Oct. 2022 Indeed, American agriculture has a strong track record of making once-obscure plants go mainstream.

Yasmin Tayag, The Atlantic, 4 Oct. 2022 The Salt Lake Tribune previously reported on some of the port’s no-bid contracts, including a multimillion-dollar agreement with QuayChain, an obscure California company that has few credentials other than its ties to the previous port director.

Leia Larsen, The Salt Lake Tribune, 20 Sep. 2022 In some stretches, the river's steep banks obscure views of almost all city buildings.

Chelsey Lewis, Journal Sentinel, 18 Aug. 2022 Compounding this problem is the fact that until recently users had to memorize obscure three- and four-letter codes to run the terminal’s functions.

Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 7 June 2022

Verb

But don’t let that obscure the good news, which was about more than one month.

Alan S. Blinder, WSJ, 24 Nov. 2022 One entry’s privilege in a historical record, as Blount tirelessly reminds his listeners, can obscure a wider and richer tapestry.

Katherine Proctor, Los Angeles Times, 17 Nov. 2022 Moreover, statewide numbers can obscure pockets of extremely low vaccination rates, where vaccine-preventable diseases can readily spread.

Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 16 Nov. 2022 Second, purely looking at numbers can obscure the dynamics of power and privilege at the heart of many population debates.

Natalia Kanem, Time, 14 Nov. 2022 But considering the election solely from the vantage point of this week can actually obscure the historical roots of our malaise.

Kate Cray, The Atlantic, 11 Nov. 2022 The increase in rainfall over the course of a year might obscure that skies are sometimes staying clear for weeks, then giving way to deluges that fill rain gauges all at once.

Journal Sentinel, 2 Nov. 2022 Worrying too much could obscure minor details of your day.

Chicago Tribune, 29 Oct. 2022 The rhetoric of self-sacrifice can obscure the stakes of contests over philanthropic power.

Benjamin Soskis, Town & Country, 27 Oct. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'obscure.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Word History

Etymology

Adjective

Middle English, "dark, unenlightened, incomprehensible," borrowed from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French oscur, obscur "dark, dull, enigmatic," borrowed from Latin obscūrus "dim, dark, appearing faintly, imperfectly known, concealed from knowledge, incomprehensible," of uncertain origin

Note: Latin obscūrus has traditionally been linked to a presumed Indo-European verbal base *skeu̯- "cover, conceal," and hence to an assortment of Germanic etyma, most formed with hypothesized root extensions of this base (compare shower entry 1, sky entry 1)—hence, J. Pokorny, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 951, American Heritage Dictionary, Oxford Latin Dictionary, and the Oxford English Dictionary, third edition. However, etymological work of the last half-century has thrown doubt on the existence of such an etymon; in particular, the Sanskrit verb skunā́ti, glossed as "covers," has now been judged a late and isolated semantic development of a verb that meant "push, poke" in Vedic. The difficulty with any analysis of obscūrus that posits a meaning "cover" for -scūr- is that it makes little sense semantically compounded with the prefix and preposition ob(s)- "facing, in front of, toward/against" (compare ob oculōs "before one's eyes," obviam "in the way of"). It is not even certain that the word is correctly parsed as ob-scūrus, rather than obs-cūrus, as has been proposed by E. Hamp ("Some Italic and Celtic correspondences II," Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, 96. Band, 1. Heft [1982/83], pp. 98-99). While acknowledging this problem, M. de Vaan suggests a relationship with the bases of Latin scaevus "left-hand" and obscēnus, obscaenus "ill-omened" (see obscene), though he admits that supporting cognates in other Indo-European languages are lacking (Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages, Brill, 2008).

Verb

Middle English obscuren, borrowed from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French obscurer, oscurir, borrowed from Latin obscūrāre "to darken, eclipse, dim, conceal from knowledge, make difficult to comprehend," verbal derivative of obscūrus "dim, dark, imperfectly known, concealed from knowledge, incomprehensible" — more at obscure entry 1

Noun

derivative of obscure entry 1

First Known Use

Adjective

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Verb

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Noun

1667, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler

The first known use of obscure was in the 15th century

See more words from the same century