obscure
adjective · verb
Simple meaning
Difficult to understand.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhbskyoorSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əbskˈjʊɹ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Difficult to understand; abstruse.
Not well-known.
Hidden, out of sight or inconspicuous.
Dark, faint or indistinct.
verb
transitive
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.
transitive
To hide, put out of sight etc.
Make obscure or unclear
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, obscure is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It suits reflective writing more than quick conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Slightly formal
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Beautiful or graceful
- Usage feel
- Reflective and slightly elevated
Nearby words
- becloud , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use obscure
- “The stars are obscured by the clouds.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The quality of being unclear or abstruse and hard to understand.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.