obscure
Americanadjective
-
(of meaning) not clear or plain; ambiguous, vague, or uncertain.
an obscure sentence in the contract.
- Antonyms:
- certain
-
not clear to the understanding; hard to perceive.
obscure motivations.
-
(of language, style, a speaker, etc.) not expressing the meaning clearly or plainly.
-
indistinct to the sight or any other sense; not readily seen, heard, etc.; faint.
- Synonyms:
- veiled
- Antonyms:
- clear
-
inconspicuous or unnoticeable.
the obscure beginnings of a great movement.
-
of little or no prominence, note, fame, or distinction.
an obscure French artist.
- Synonyms:
- unknown, undistinguished
- Antonyms:
- conspicuous, noted
-
far from public notice, worldly affairs, or important activities; remote; retired.
an obscure little town.
- Synonyms:
- inconspicuous, secluded
-
lacking in light or illumination; dark; dim; murky.
an obscure back room.
- Antonyms:
- bright
-
enveloped in, concealed by, or frequenting darkness.
-
not bright or lustrous; dull or darkish, as color or appearance.
-
(of a vowel) having the reduced or neutral sound usually represented by the schwa (ษ).
verb (used with object)
-
obscures,
present (3rd person singular)
-
obscured,
past participle, past
-
obscuring
present participle
-
to conceal or conceal by confusing (the meaning of a statement, poem, etc.).
-
to make dark, dim, indistinct, etc.
-
to reduce or neutralize (a vowel) to the sound usually represented by a schwa (ษ).
noun
adjective
-
unclear or abstruse
-
indistinct, vague, or indefinite
-
inconspicuous or unimportant
-
hidden, secret, or remote
-
(of a vowel) reduced to or transformed into a neutral vowel ( ษ )
-
gloomy, dark, clouded, or dim
verb
-
to make unclear, vague, or hidden
-
to cover or cloud over
-
phonetics to pronounce (a vowel) with articulation that causes it to become a neutral sound represented by ( ษ )
noun
Synonym Usage
See mysterious. See dark.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
obscurationnoun
-
obscurenessnoun
-
subobscurenessnoun
-
unobscurenessnoun
-
subobscureadjective
-
unobscureadjective
-
unobscuredadjective
-
obscuredlyadverb
-
obscurelyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
obscuresimple
-
obscuressimple
-
have obscuredperfect
-
has obscuredperfect
-
am obscuringprogressive
-
are obscuringprogressive
-
is obscuringprogressive
-
have been obscuringperfect progressive
-
has been obscuringperfect progressive
Past
-
obscuredsimple
-
had obscuredperfect
-
was obscuringprogressive
-
were obscuringprogressive
-
had been obscuringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of obscure
First recorded in 1350โ1400; Middle English, from Old French oscur, obscur, from Latin obscลซrus โdarkโ
Explanation
If something is obscure, it's vague and hard to see. Be careful if you're driving in heavy rain โ the painted lines can be obscure. Obscure comes from Latin obscurus, which can mean "dark, dim," "unclear, hard to understand," or "insignificant, humble." We tend to use obscure in the metaphorical senses: an obscure sound is unclear, an obscure village is hidden away in the countryside, and an obscure poet is little known and probably insignificant. Obscure can also be used as a verb. If you get really nervous when you speak during a debate, your embarrassing twitches and shaking hands can obscure your argument.
Vocabulary lists containing obscure
100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know
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The SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words, List 2
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Essential Academic Vocabulary for Middle School Students, List 3
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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.
See Examples For:
Synthetic aperture radar sends microwave signals toward Earth's surface, allowing satellites to collect measurements even when clouds obscure the ground.
From Science Daily โ Oct. 19, 2026
Extraordinary profits help obscure both risks and reassure many of those buying stocks.
From The Wall Street Journal โ Oct. 18, 2026
As the city and county fight to take over LAHSA’s duties, an obscure decision-making body called the Continuum of Care has been placed in the spotlight.
From Los Angeles Times โ Oct. 14, 2026
She believes the rapid commercial growth of women's football has helped to obscure some of these realities.
From BBC โ Oct. 12, 2026
I don’t trust Estraven, whose motives are forever obscure; I don’t like him; yet I feel and respond to his authority as surely as I do to the warmth of the sun.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
Or as Folger’s artistic director, Janet Griffin, said to me one time, in reference to another of Shakespeare’s obscurer dramas, “Pericles”: “We are looking for what the play is saying to us today.”
From Washington Post โ Apr. 27, 2017
I suggested moving to an obscurer table in the rear.
From The Guardian โ Jun. 19, 2010
There he demanded one of the obscurer works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
From Time Magazine Archive
Even her obscurer books have something about them that attracts popular attention, for more than most stylists, she writes about the common gist of things.
From Time Magazine Archive
Not always was it quite the same, and thereby the doubter found his denials, when presently a sort of discussion broke out in the obscurer Press.
From Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump; Being a First Selection from the Literary Remains of George Boon, Appropriate to the Times by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
Feel grateful we live in a time when the obscurest, niche-iest, weirdest series you love got a chance to exist.
From Slate โ Dec. 20, 2018
Coetzee calls him "the obscurest of the obscure, so obscure as to be a prodigy."
From Time Magazine Archive
"The obscurest epoch is today," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson.
From Time Magazine Archive
You have gone straight to the heart of this mystery, and have thrown light into its obscurest corner, as a dozen flaming torches would have illumined that dark laboratory in the Monastery.
From A Prince of Good Fellows by Robert Barr
But at last he began to feel a distaste for even these; and now nothing but the utter night-desolation of the obscurest warehousing lanes would content him, or be at all sufferable to him.
From Pierre; or The Ambiguities by Herman Melville
Attributing accountability to artificial intelligence obscures the human decisions that led to these outcomes.
From The Wall Street Journal โ Sep. 15, 2026
The hagiographic tone of “The Man Will Burn” obscures that.
From Salon โ Jul. 24, 2026
But more than that, it obscures the reality and erases the history of transgender lives by diminishing the significant time, money, and effort many transgender people spend to align their body with their sex.
From Slate โ Jul. 7, 2026
Often, the design’s playfulness obscures the protagonist’s malaise.
From Los Angeles Times โ Mar. 16, 2026
Steam rises from the surface so thick it obscures the walls, the ceiling, the dark shape in the corner.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
This year, the calculation has also been impacted by heavy haze, which has obscured satellite images at times.
From Barron's โ Oct. 19, 2026
"We couldn't see pair density waves in our earlier data because of material impurities that obscured our data," Madhavan said.
From Science Daily โ Oct. 7, 2026
Seeing the outfit up close is a reminder of just how little Hopkins needed to work with: Even with virtually his entire body immobilized and much of his face obscured, Lecter somehow became more frightening.
From Los Angeles Times โ Sep. 25, 2026
Whereas Meghan does occasionally show the couple's children on social media, their faces are often obscured as they are photgraphed from behind or their faces are hidden by their parents.
From BBC โ Sep. 13, 2026
While a great deal of its walls are composed of frosted glass, most of it is obscured by cabinets and shelves.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
The firm has also been accused of obscuring its production processes from the public eye.
From Barron's โ Aug. 24, 2026
But for my money, there is too much tedious, mealymouthed chaff obscuring what should be her larger point.
From Slate โ Aug. 4, 2026
Now, policies are seemingly directed at obscuring conditions in the for-profit facility operated by The GEO Group.
From Salon โ Jul. 17, 2026
In the early hours of Saturday, workers hung long plastic sheeting from the structure, obscuring the removal of the letters.
From BBC โ Jun. 13, 2026
It was growing colder, unseasonably cold for the middle of May, and the fog, though not heavy, was rising off the water, thickening imperceptibly, and obscuring the lowcountry in its passage across the land.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
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