Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Obscure   /əbskjˈʊr/   Listen
Obscure

adjective
(compar. obscurer; superl. obscurest)
1.
Not clearly understood or expressed.  Synonym: vague.  "An impulse to go off and fight certain obscure battles of his own spirit" , "Their descriptions of human behavior become vague, dull, and unclear" , "Vague...forms of speech...have so long passed for mysteries of science"
2.
Marked by difficulty of style or expression.  Synonym: dark.  "Those who do not appreciate Kafka's work say his style is obscure"
3.
Difficult to find.  Synonym: hidden.  "A hidden cave" , "An obscure retreat"
4.
Not famous or acclaimed.  Synonyms: unknown, unsung.  "Unsung heroes of the war"
5.
Not drawing attention.  Synonym: unnoticeable.  "An obscure flaw"
6.
Remote and separate physically or socially.  Synonyms: apart, isolated.  "Preserved because they inhabited a place apart" , "Tiny isolated villages remote from centers of civilization" , "An obscure village"
verb
(past & past part. obscured; pres. part. obscuring)
1.
Make less visible or unclear.  Synonyms: becloud, befog, cloud, fog, haze over, mist, obnubilate.  "The big elm tree obscures our view of the valley"
2.
Make unclear, indistinct, or blurred.  Synonyms: blur, confuse, obnubilate.  "Their words obnubilate their intentions"
3.
Make obscure or unclear.  Synonyms: bedim, overcloud.
4.
Reduce a vowel to a neutral one, such as a schwa.
5.
Make undecipherable or imperceptible by obscuring or concealing.  Synonyms: blot out, hide, obliterate, veil.  "A veiled threat"



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Obscure" Quotes from Famous Books



... was carried] be ready, and furnished with Match [or cotton thread, boiled in ashes-lye and powder, and kept smouldering, with a red end, when in use], and to have alwaies one lighted, and where the Cannoneer makes his Quarter to have two one above another below [this last passage is a little obscure, but we take it to mean that at night, when the gunner slept in his cabin, a lighted match was to be beside him, but that in the gun-decks below and above his cabin (which was in the half-deck) lit matches were to be kept ready for immediate use, by those who kept watch], that his Granadoes ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... solar disk between serpents, and the old Berber religion, with its sun and animal worship, has many points of resemblance with Egyptian beliefs. All this implies trade contacts far below the horizon of history, and obscure comings and goings of restless throngs across incredible distances long before the Phenicians planted their first trading posts on the north African coast about ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... admitted, however, that this purely subjective view of philosophy, with its implied demand for a precise subjective colouring of the words, leaves some part of our philosophical motive-force unsatisfied and troubled by an obscure distress. No two minds can interchange ideas without some kind of appeal, often so faint and unconscious as to be quite unrecognized, to an invisible audience of hidden attendants upon the argument, who are tacitly assumed in some mysterious way to be the ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... a great deal that is enigmatic and obscure in nature; and even in everyday life, doctor, one must often come upon phenomena which are absolutely incapable of explanation. I know, for instance, of several strange, mysterious deaths, the cause of which only spiritualists ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... either in Mr. Mill or his follower, Mr. Fawcett. Mr. Mill is capable of immense involuntary error; but his involuntary errors are usually owing to his seeing only one or two of the many sides of a thing; not to obscure sight of the side he does see. Thus his 'Essay on Liberty' only takes cognizance of facts that make for liberty, and of none that make for restraint. But in its statement of all that can be said for liberty, it is so clear and keen, that I have myself quoted it before now as the best authority ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com