obscure
pronunciation
How to pronounce obscure in British English:
UK [əbˈskjʊə(r)]
How to pronounce obscure in American English:
US [əbˈskjʊr]
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- Verb:
- make less visible or unclear
- make unclear, indistinct, or blurred
- make obscure or unclear
- make undecipherable or imperceptible by obscuring or concealing
- make difficult to perceive by sight
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- Adjective:
- not clearly understood or expressed
- marked by difficulty of style or expression
- difficult to find
- not famous or acclaimed
- not drawing attention
- remote and separate physically or socially
Word Origin
- obscure
- obscure: see sky
- obscure (adj.)
- c. 1400, "dark," figuratively "morally unenlightened; gloomy," from Old French obscur, oscur "dark, clouded, gloomy; dim, not clear" (12c.) and directly from Latin obscurus "dark, dusky, shady," figuratively "unknown; unintelligible; hard to discern; from insignificant ancestors," from ob "over" (see ob-) + -scurus "covered," from PIE *(s)keu- "to cover, conceal" (see sky). Related: Obscurely.
- obscure (v.)
- early 15c., "to cover (something), cloud over," from obscure (adj.) or else from Middle French obscurer, from Latin obscurare "to make dark, darken, obscure," from obscurus. Related: Obscured; obscuring.
Example
- 1. What advantage melanism brings in these circumstances is obscure .
- 2. Scandinavians are also lumbered with obscure and difficult languages .
- 3. When central bankers talk about setting interest rates they are famously obscure .
- 4. How this state of affairs arose is obscure .
- 5. All genres and styles of music are covered here , ranging from the most commercially popular to the most obscure .