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Obscure   /əbskjˈʊr/   Listen
adjective
Obscure  adj.  (compar. obscurer; superl. obscurest)  
1.
Covered over, shaded, or darkened; destitute of light; imperfectly illuminated; dusky; dim. "His lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness."
2.
Of or pertaining to darkness or night; inconspicuous to the sight; indistinctly seen; hidden; retired; remote from observation; unnoticed. "The obscure bird Clamored the livelong night." "The obscure corners of the earth."
3.
Not noticeable; humble; mean. "O base and obscure vulgar." "An obscure person."
4.
Not easily understood; not clear or legible; abstruse or incomprehensible; as, an obscure passage or inscription.
5.
Not clear, full, or distinct; clouded; imperfect; as, an obscure view of remote objects.
Obscure rays (Opt.), those rays which are not luminous or visible, and which in the spectrum are beyond the limits of the visible portion.
Synonyms: Dark; dim; darksome; dusky; shadowy; misty; abstruse; intricate; difficult; mysterious; retired; unnoticed; unknown; humble; mean; indistinct.



verb
Obscure  v. t.  (past & past part. obscured; pres. part. obscuring)  To render obscure; to darken; to make dim; to keep in the dark; to hide; to make less visible, intelligible, legible, glorious, beautiful, or illustrious. "They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights." "Why, 't is an office of discovery, love, And I should be obscured." "There is scarce any duty which has been so obscured by the writings of learned men as this." "And seest not sin obscures thy godlike frame?"



Obscure  v. i.  To conceal one's self; to hide; to keep dark. (Obs.) "How! There's bad news. I must obscure, and hear it."



noun
Obscure  n.  Obscurity. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Obscure" Quotes from Famous Books



... but kindness to us. But years have passed since we began this life; and to take from my brother any part of what has so endeared him to me, and so proved his better resolution—any fragment of the merit of his unassisted, obscure, and forgotten reparation—would be to diminish the comfort it will be to him and me, when that time comes to each of us, of which you spoke just now. I thank you better with these tears than ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... certain independent means, she is far from being an opponent of private property as such. Her bete noire is the fashionable or aristocratic classes, these being the true Antichrist; and she has founded a church whose main spiritual mission is to instigate an elite of the obscure and earnest to despise them. By and by she meets some members of this despicable class herself. Among them is a Tory Prime Minister, who joins with his sister, an exceedingly fine lady, in expressing a respectful and profound admiration of her intellect. Mrs. Norham's philosophy of social ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... work in the army and the record of its brilliant achievements may in some degree obscure the service rendered our country and its Allies by the Negro in the navy, but the Negro was represented in this branch of the military service almost in the same proportion, and, just as with Perry on Lake ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... execution of this book is not better than its substantial merits deserve. The style is generally clumsy, often obscure, and not unseldom harsh and inflated. Take an instance or two, picked out absolutely at random.—"The disaffected, who held throughout the contest the seaboard of the State in abeyance, driven forth, would have felt in their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... Galsworthy, Mr. Granville Barker, Mr. Cunninghame-Graham, Mr. Belloc, and Mr. Chesterton have written books the motives of which have been satire, divine anger, saeva indignatio, directed against the established moral codes or intellectual habits of the time. Mr. Shaw, who originally followed the obscure Samuel Butler, showed the way for the others. His method was, and is, to combine argument with the more telling weapon of ridicule. In his Preface to Blanco Posnet he exposes and ridicules the Dramatic Censorship, just as in ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James


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