obscureとは

発音

• (英国発音) IPA^(key): /əbˈskjʊə(ɹ)/, /əbˈskjɔː(ɹ)/
• (米国発音) IPA^(key): /əbˈskjʊɚ/

形容詞

obscure (comparative obscurer または more obscure, superlative obscurest または most obscure)

1. Dark, faint or indistinct.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 1, 1-2

     I found myself in an obscure wood.

   • Bible, Proverbs xx. 20

     His lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.

2. Hidden, out of sight or inconspicuous.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     The obscure bird / Clamoured the livelong night.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir J. Davies

     the obscure corners of the earth

3. difficult to understand.
   • 2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure.

   an obscure passage or inscription;    The speaker made obscure references to little-known literary works.

4. not well-known.

使用する際の注意点

• The comparative obscurer and superlative obscurest, though formed by valid rules for English, are less common than more obscure and most obscure.

同意語

• (dark): cimmerian, dingy; See also Thesaurus:dark
• (faint または indistinct): fuzzy, ill-defined; See also Thesaurus:indistinct
• (hidden, out of sight): occluded, secluded; See also Thesaurus:hidden
• (difficult to understand): fathomless, inscrutable; See also Thesaurus:incomprehensible
• (not well-known): enigmatic, esoteric, mysterious; See also Thesaurus:arcane

反意語

• clear

派生語

• obscurable
• unobscurable
• obscureness

関連する語

• obscurity
• obscuration

動詞

obscure (三人称単数 現在形 obscures, 現在分詞 obscuring, 過去形および過去分詞形 obscured)

1. (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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Wake

     There is scarce any duty which has been so obscured by the writings of learned men as this.

2. (transitive) To hide, put out of sight etc.
   • 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:

     But Richmond […] appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw, peeping around the massive silver epergne that almost obscured him from her view, that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either.

   • Bill Watterson, Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat, page 62

     I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity.

3. (intransitive, obsolete) To conceal oneself; to hide.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Beaumont and Fletcher

     How! There's bad news. / I must obscure, and hear it.

同意語

• (to render obscure; to darken; dim): becloud, bedarken, bedim, bemist

Further reading

• obscure in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• obscure in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

アナグラム

• Cuberos

Latin

形容詞

obscūre

1. vocative masculine singular of obscūrus

参照

• obscure in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• obscure in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• obscure in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette