Dictionary Definition
obscure adj
1 not clearly understood or expressed; "an
obscure turn of phrase"; "an impulse to go off and fight certain
obscure battles of his own spirit"-Anatole Broyard; "their
descriptions of human behavior become vague, dull, and unclear"-
P.A.Sorokin; "vague...forms of speech...have so long passed for
mysteries of science"- John Locke [syn: vague]
2 marked by difficulty of style or expression;
"much that was dark is now quite clear to me"; "those who do not
appreciate Kafka's work say his style is obscure" [syn: dark]
3 difficult to find; "hidden valleys"; "a hidden
cave"; "an obscure retreat" [syn: hidden]
5 not drawing attention; "an unnoticeable
cigarette burn on the carpet"; "an obscure flaw" [syn: unnoticeable]
6 remote and separate physically or socially;
"existed over the centuries as a world apart"; "preserved because
they inhabited a place apart"- W.H.Hudson; "tiny isolated villages
remote from centers of civilization"; "an obscure village" [syn:
apart(p),
isolated]
Verb
1 make less visible or unclear; "The stars are
obscured by the clouds" [syn: befog, becloud, obnubilate, haze over,
fog, cloud, mist]
2 make unclear, indistinct, or blurred; "Her
remarks confused the debate"; "Their words obnubilate their
intentions" [syn: confuse, blur, obnubilate]
4 make undecipherable or imperceptible by
obscuring or concealing; "a hidden message"; "a veiled threat"
[syn: blot
out, obliterate,
veil, hide]
5 make difficult to perceive by sight; "The
foliage of the huge tree obscures the view of the lake" [syn:
benight, bedim]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
- /əbˈskjʊɚ/, /@b"skjU@/
Adjective
- Dark, faint or indistinct.
- "I found myself in an obscure wood . ." Dante, Inferno,1,1-2
- Hidden, out of sight or inconspicuous,
- Difficult to understand.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations
dark, faint or indistinct
- Arabic:
- Chinese: 不清楚的 (bù qīngchǔ de), 阴暗 (yīn’àn), 模糊的 (móhu de)
- Czech: temný (dark), nezřetelný (indistinct)
- Dutch: duister
- Finnish: hämärä (1), vaikeaselkoinen (1, indistinct), huomaamaton (2)
- French: obscur
- German: obskur
- Hungarian: kétes hírű, tompa
- Italian: oscuro
- Japanese: 朦朧とした (もうろうとした, mōrō to shita), 不明瞭な(ふめいりょうな, fumeiryō)
- Korean: 애매한 (aemaehan)
- Polish: ciemny , niewyraźny
- Portuguese: obscuro
- Russian: тёмный (tjómnyj)
- Spanish: obscuro
- Swedish: mörk
hidden, out of sight or inconspicuous
- Chinese: 不显眼的 (bú xiǎnyǎn de), 不引人注意的 (bú yǐn rén zhùyì de)
- Polish: mało znany , ukryty
Verb
obscureTranslations
to darken, make faint
- Polish: zaciemnić, przesłonić
to hide, put out of sight
French
Pronunciation
/ɔpskyr/Adjective
obscure- feminine of obscur
Extensive Definition
Obscure may refer to:
- ObsCure, a survival horror video game released in 2004
- "Obscure" (song), by Japanese rock band Dir en grey, from Vulgar
- Obscure Records, started by Brian Eno in 1975 to release works by lesser-known composers
See also
- Obscurity (disambiguation)
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Cimmerian, abstruse, adiaphanous, adumbrate, aleatoric, aleatory, ambiguous, amorphic, amorphous, amphibological, anarchic, anonymous, apply to, arcane, around the bush, back of
beyond, baffling,
baggy, bandage, beamless, beat about, becloud, beclouded, bedarken, bedazzle, bedim, befog, befogged, beg the question,
begloom, belie, bemist, benight, beyond one, bicker, black, black as night, black out,
blacken, blanket, blear, bleared, bleary, blind, blind the eyes, blindfold, blobby, block, block the light, blot out,
blur, blurred, blurry, boggle, broad, brown, buried, caliginous, camouflage, canopy, cast a shadow, cavil, chance, chancy, chaotic, characterless, choplogic, clabber up, clear
as mud, cloak, close, clothe, cloud, cloud over, cloud up,
clouded, cloudy, complex, complicate, complicated, conceal, concealed, confuse, confused, confusing, cope, corrupt, cover, cover up, covered, covert, cowl, crabbed, cramp, cryptic, curtain, dark, dark as night, dark as pitch,
darken, darken over,
darkling, darksome, daze, dazzle, deform, deprive of sight,
devious, difficult, dim, dim out, disguise, dismal, disorder, disordered, disorderly, dissemble, distant, distort, distract attention
from, dodge, double-edged,
double-faced, doubtful,
dubious, dull, dusk, dusky, ebon, ebony, eclipse, eclipsed, encloud, encompass with shadow,
enigmatic, enmist, ensconce, enshroud, envelop, equivocal, equivocate, esoteric, evade, evade the issue, excecate, faint, falsify, far, far-off, featureless, feeble, fence, film, filmy, fog, fog up, foggy, foreign, formless, fuliginous, fuzz, fuzzy, garble, garbled, general, glare, gloom, gloomy, gloss over, gouge, grumly, half-seen, half-visible,
hard, hard to understand,
haze, hazy, hedge, hid, hidden, hide, hit-or-miss, hood, hoodwink, humble, ignotus, ill-defined, illegible, impervious to
light, imprecise, in a
cloud, in a fog, in eclipse, in purdah, in the wings, inaccessible, inaccurate, inchoate, incoherent, incommunicado, incomprehensible,
inconclusive,
inconsequential,
inconspicuous,
indecisive, indefinable, indefinite, indeterminable, indeterminate, indistinct, indistinguishable,
inexact, inexplicable, inform, inglorious, inscrutable, insignificant, intransparent, intricate, jumble, jumbled, kaleidoscopic, keep from,
keep under cover, knotty,
latent, lax, lay on, lay over, little known,
lonesome, loose, low-profile, lowly, lumpen, make blind, make
uncertain, make unintelligible, mantle, mask, mean, merely glimpsed, mess up,
minor, misadvise, misdirect, miseducate, misguide, misinform, misinstruct, mislead, misrepresent, mist, misteach, misty, muddle, muddy, muffle, murk, murky, mysterious, mystic, mystical, mystify, mystifying, nameless, nebulous, night-black,
night-clad, night-cloaked, night-dark, night-enshrouded,
night-filled, night-mantled, night-veiled, nitpick, no credit to, nondescript, nonspecific, nubilate, nubilous, obduce, obfuscate, obfuscated, obnubilate, obscured, obumbrate, occult, occultate, occulted, odd, opaque, orderless, out of focus,
out-of-the-way, overcast, overcloud, overlay, overshadow, oversmoke, overspread, overtechnical, pale, palter, parry, perplexed, perplexing, pervert, pick nits, pitch-black,
pitch-dark, pitchy,
prevaricate,
pussyfoot, put on,
puzzling, quibble, random, rayless, recondite, remote, removed, renownless, retired, roiled, roily, scramble, scrambled, screen, scum, secluded, secluse, secret, semivisible, sequestered, shade, shadow, shadowed forth, shadowy, shady, shapeless, shield, shift, shroud, shuffle, shy, sidestep, slur over, smog, smoke, snow-blind, solitary, somber, split hairs, spread over,
starless, stochastic, strange, strike blind, subfusc, sunless, superimpose, superpose, sweeping, tenebrious, tenebrose, tenebrous, tergiversate, tough, transcendent, turbid, umbral, uncelebrated, uncertain, unclear, undefined, under an eclipse,
under cover, under house arrest, under wraps, underground, undestined, undetermined, undistinguished,
unemphatic, unfamed, unfamiliar, unfathomable, unform, unglorified, unheard-of,
unhonored, unilluminated, unimportant, unintelligible, unknown, unlighted, unlit, unnamed, unnotable, unnoted, unnoticeable, unnoticed, unordered, unorganized, unplain, unpopular, unrecognizable, unremarked, unrenowned, unshape, unspecified, unsung, vague, varnish, veil, veiled, weak, whitewash, wrapped in
clouds