obscurely

American  

[uhb-skyoor-lee] / əbˈskyʊər li /

adverb

1. in a way that is not expressed clearly or plainly; ambiguously or vaguely.

   This question, although obscurely phrased, is one of the easiest interview questions to answer if you approach it properly.

2. in a way that is hard to discern or identify, or is not clear to the understanding.

   The end of the story made me wonder if Lila had only imagined the whole thing—a reading that felt obscurely troubling to me.

3. in a way that is not prominent or famous or that garners little public attention or importance.

   In the 17th century, the game of cricket grew up obscurely and locally as a game of the common people.

4. in a place that is out of the way and not easy to find or notice.

   The church is small and stands to one side of the village, rather obscurely.

   We trekked to an obscurely located arch of rock, hidden in a remote pocket of northern Arizona.

5. in a dim or murky way; faintly.

   In Poe’s poem, the “sad Soul” doomed to live in Dream-Land sees everything through “darkened glasses,” erroneously and obscurely.

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Other Word Forms

• subobscurely adverb
• unobscurely adverb

Etymology

Origin of obscurely

obscure ( def. ) + -ly

Example Sentences

Let the officers pore over their digital maps and the soldiers gesticulate obscurely at one another on the field.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 18, 2025

At the time, US officials said Mr Artemov used an expansive network of ships often registered obscurely to transport Iranian oil.

From BBC • Dec. 11, 2025

You would have to include the Air Force Association and the obscurely named Submarine Industrial Base Council, among others.

From Salon • Aug. 1, 2023

Somewhat obscurely, Aristotle claims that this first cause is “thought thinking itself.”

From Textbooks • Jun. 15, 2022

Blinking away the brightness of the street outside my eyes picked him out obscurely in the anteroom, talking to another man.

From " The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald