obscure

From Old French obscur, from Latin obscūrus (“dark, dusky, indistinct”), possibly, from ob (“over”) + -scurus (“covered”), from root scu (“cover”), seen also in scutum (“a shield”); see scutum, sky.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əbˈskjʊə(ɹ)/, /əbˈskjɔː(ɹ)/
• (US) IPA^(key): /əbˈskjʊɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

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

1. Dark, faint or indistinct.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 1, 1-2

     I found myself in an obscure wood.

   • Bible, Proverbs xx. 20

     His lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.

2. Hidden, out of sight or inconspicuous.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     The obscure bird / Clamoured the livelong night.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir J. Davies

     the obscure corners of the earth

3. difficult to understand.
   • 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.

   an obscure passage or inscription;    The speaker made obscure references to little-known literary works.

4. not well-known.

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

• (dark): cimmerian, dingy; See also Thesaurus:dark
• (faint or indistinct): fuzzy, ill-defined; See also Thesaurus:indistinct
• (hidden, out of sight): occluded, secluded; See also Thesaurus:hidden
• (difficult to understand): fathomless, inscrutable; See also Thesaurus:incomprehensible
• (not well-known): enigmatic, esoteric, mysterious; See also Thesaurus:arcane

• clear

• obscurable
• unobscurable
• obscureness

• obscurity
• obscuration

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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Wake

     There is scarce any duty which has been so obscured by the writings of learned men as this.

2. (transitive) To hide, put out of sight etc.
   • 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.

   • 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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Beaumont and Fletcher

     How! There's bad news. / I must obscure, and hear it.

• (to render obscure; to darken; dim): becloud, bedarken, bedim, bemist

• obscure in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• obscure in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• Cuberos

• IPA^(key): /ɔp.skyʁ/

obscure

1. feminine singular of obscur

• courbes

obscūre

1. vocative masculine singular of obscūrus

• 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