Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Deficiency or absence of light; darkness.
- n. The quality or condition of being unknown: "Even utter obscurity need not be an obstacle to [political] success” ( New Republic).
- n. One that is unknown.
- n. The quality or condition of being imperfectly known or difficult to understand: "writings meant to be understood . . . by all, composed without deliberate obscurity or hidden motives” ( National Review).
- n. An instance of being imperfectly known or difficult to understand.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The quality or state of being obscure; darkness; dimness; uncertainty of meaning; unintelligibleness; an obscure place, state, or condition; especially, the condition of being unknown.
- n. Synonyms Dimness, Gloom, etc. (see darkness), shade, obscuration; retirement, seclusion.
Wiktionary
- n. literary Darkness; the absence of light.
- n. The state of being unknown; a thing that is unknown
- n. The quality of being difficult to understand; a thing that is difficult to understand
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality or state of being obscure.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an obscure and unimportant standing; not well known
- n. the quality of being unclear or abstruse and hard to understand
- n. the state of being indistinct or indefinite for lack of adequate illumination
Examples
“While any list that highlights lesser known people who toil in obscurity is a good thing i would suggest the following:”
“Now I appreciate that it may be a political fact of life in Canada that the surest way to send an up-and-coming cabinet minister to obscurity is to suggest that he has a great and glorious future before him, particularly when his Prime Minister is relatively young and healthy.”
“The spectacular mistiming of his own 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days, doomed the book to short-term infamy and long-term obscurity.”
“In each of those incredibly successful series there were stars that rose to the next level and others who have wallowed in obscurity (self-imposed or otherwise).”
Twilight Lexicon » Twilight Fans Only Want to See Stars in Twilight Films
“Hardly content to toil in obscurity, Schumer honed his ability to insert himself front and center into the biggest issues of the day.”
“May you live in obscurity and forever be associated with amongst your many crimes Abu Ghraib as Nixon is to Wartergate. —”
Bush to Deliver Farewell Address on Thursday - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
“It is an unlikely position for a company that, had it complied with collusive Japanese business traditions and paid heed to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, would be stuck in obscurity making piston rings.”
“Closer to our own time, Joseph Heller and William Gaddis spent years in obscurity doing menial writing-related work in order to write novels that at first few people cared about.”
“I definitely think obscurity is worse for authors.”
Piracy vs Obscurity: Which Is Worse For Authors? by Joanna Penn | The Creative Penn
“You pay your dues by toiling in obscurity and poverty for years, patiently perfecting your craft and hoping that somewhere, someone will recognize your hard work and give you a shot.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘obscurity’.
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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Words from poetry you write that you ...
See title
ireland, tattered, contents, silver, springs, waltz, spite, hammock, slackening, firmament, poesy, writ and 24 more...
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In our own Nighttime
Words that appropriately fit my dreaming...
or when I'm not in a state of "wakefulness."wake, perversity, obscurity, opaque, uneven, absence, recall, recoil, maimeries, embittered, yashmak, veiled and 2 more...
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ChortleGiggleSnort
Significant Words- Guiding you on your path to Snazzibility
flimsy, feeble, ranting, ramble, narky, snazzy, yoghurt, bulbous, pustule, globulous, geranium, megalomaniac and 521 more...
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Holli
Cancer, Mercury, water, moon, dark, emotion, nostalgia, angst, brooding, isolation, shadow, corner and 145 more...
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Words For Novel (Part 3)
fibers, gypsy, polymer, schism, syphilitic garden..., holocaust, scrutinant, contemplate, aftermath, consequence, deadlock, impasse and 153 more...
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reginaterra's Words
purl, blow, squish, andean, generality, adaptation, lush, pack, filter, acquiesce, abstraction, sweet and 508 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Cessilind's Words
dvorak, ingenuity, cessation, oblique, transverse, anvilicious, evoke, verisimilitude, integrity, strega, recumbent, depression and 164 more...
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kirstenio's Words
lascivious, transcendant, phantasmagoria, salacious, beatitude, solitude, pseudo, pretentious, inanity, sublimation, clobber, obscurity and 186 more...
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the_grene_kni3t's Words
acuarela, sesquipedalian, capital, métier, chap, cove, guv, guv'nor, ratiocination, transatlantique, ineffable, aural and 142 more...
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Rilakkuma's list
The Velvetine Ruffians
gamine, waif, ruffian, villain, rake, libertine, velvetine, luminary, nom de plume, street urchin, epicurean, eventide and 256 more...
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cloudjuice's Words
schadenfreude, sordid, promulgate, erratic, erroneous, amalgamate, sesquipedalian, incongruous, psychosis, etymology, simulacrum, serendipity and 988 more...
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GPaX. Words.
excogitate, clarity, obscurity, tangential, interesting, regurgitate, mycelium, degradation, unladen, swallow, klein, quote and 120 more...
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Inner B
Words with the letter b within the word, not just as the initial or last letter.
remember, maybe, able, unable, nimble, cable, reusable, thimble, cymbal, capable, tremble, enable and 143 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for obscurity.
pterodactyl I spotted a very Wordie-like treatment of the word obscurity in an episode of the TV show QI -- you can watch it here. Apr 25, 2008
sonofgroucho As in "plucked from obscurity". Dec 30, 2006