cryptic
Americanadjective
-
mysterious in meaning; puzzling; ambiguous.
a cryptic message.
- Synonyms:
- enigmatic
-
abrupt; terse; short.
a cryptic note.
-
secret; occult.
a cryptic writing.
-
involving or using cipher, code, etc.
-
Zoology. fitted for concealing; serving to camouflage.
noun
adjective
-
hidden; secret; occult
-
(esp of comments, sayings, etc) obscure in meaning
-
(of the coloration of animals) tending to conceal by disguising or camouflaging the shape
Synonym Usage
See ambiguous.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of cryptic
1595–1605; < Late Latin crypticus < Greek kryptikós hidden. See crypt, -ic
Explanation
"White bunny. Moon square." Do you understand what that means? Of course not! It's totally cryptic. Cryptic comments or messages are hard to understand because they seem to have a hidden meaning. Cryptic is from Late Latin crypticus, from Greek kryptos, "hidden." This Greek adjective is the source of the English noun crypt, referring to a room under a church in which dead people are buried. That might account for why the word cryptic has an eerie tone to it.
Vocabulary lists containing cryptic
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The lower courts would assume they still had to follow that precedent until it was overruled, rather than guess what a cryptic shadow docket order meant.
From Slate • Jun. 1, 2026
“I don’t get it,” Anthony admits after one of Daniel’s cryptic explanations.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 1, 2026
Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak have pinpointed a winter night in 2016 as the turning point, when the justices “issued a cryptic, one paragraph ruling” on Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
From Salon • Apr. 22, 2026
He punctuated a day of conflicting messaging with a cryptic social media post: “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”
From Barron's • Apr. 6, 2026
He killed me at the Scrabble board, barely concentrating, and on those occasions when speech was necessary he had a way of compressing large thoughts into small, cryptic packets of language.
From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
