obscurity
Americannoun
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the state or quality of being obscure.
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the condition of being unknown.
He lived in obscurity for years before winning acclaim.
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uncertainty of meaning or expression; ambiguity.
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an unknown or unimportant person or thing.
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darkness; dimness; indistinctness.
noun
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the state or quality of being obscure
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an obscure person or thing
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of obscurity
1470–80; late Middle English < Middle French obscurite < Latin obscūritās, equivalent to obscūr ( us ) obscure + -itās -ity
Explanation
One meaning of obscurity is nobody knowing who you are, and another definition is something that is hard to understand because it’s too complex or unclear. Obscurity is the opposite of fame, and living in obscurity means that nobody knows your name. Many musicians played in obscurity for years before becoming rock stars. The Latin obscurus means “dark,” which is where obscurity is found: in the dark where no one sees it. Something difficult to comprehend has obscurity, for example the obscurity of a medical magazine, or a complex poem that is full of literary obscurities, referencing other poems that no one has read.
Vocabulary lists containing obscurity
The Maze Runner
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Pygmalion
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"The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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.
Last year, instead of releasing her first book, called Obscurity, as physical copies in High Street bookstores, or as a Kindle version to download, she started to self-publish chapters as email instalments.
From BBC • Nov. 13, 2022
Obscurity suited Ms. Ingalls, who grew up near Boston, the daughter of a Harvard Sanskrit professor, and found herself drawn to England by the quadricentennial celebrations of Shakespeare’s birth in 1964.
From Washington Post • Mar. 21, 2019
Obscurity is a threat to Wolff no longer.
From Seattle Times • Jan. 4, 2018
But the Italian sailor will face serious competition from Joel Ronning’s Catapult, the reigning J/70 world champion, and Peter Duncan’s Relative Obscurity, last year’s Key West runnerup.
From Washington Times • Jan. 15, 2017
But the great Sovereign of the World beholds every Perfection in its Obscurity, and not only sees what we do, but what we would do.
From The Spectator, Volume 2. by Addison, Joseph
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.
