obscure

What it means

1. Dark, faint or indistinct.

   I found myself in an obscure wood.

   1892, Denton Jaques Snider, Inferno, 1, 1-2 (originally by Dante Alighieri)

   1 more example

   His lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 20:20

   Synonyms: cimmerian, dingy, fuzzy, ill-defined, adumbral, blear, caliginous, cimmerian · Antonyms: clear, distinct, alight, illuminated, inlighted, lighted, lighty, lit

2. Hidden, out of sight or inconspicuous.

   the obscure corners of the earth

   1606, John Davies of Hereford, Bien Venu

   1 more example

   The obscure bird / Clamoured the livelong night.

   c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]

   Synonyms: occluded, secluded, covered, concealed, dark, dern, hidden, invisible · Antonyms: clear, straightforward, apparent, bare, displayed, distinct, evident, exposed

3. Difficult to understand; abstruse.

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

   2 more examples

   The lock was of a kind that Watt could not pick. Watt could pick simple locks, but he could not pick obscure locks.

   1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC

   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.

   2013 August 3, “The machine of a new soul”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

   Synonyms: fathomless, inscrutable, abstruse, Chinese, dense, enigmatic, fathomless, bottomless · Antonyms: clear, apprehensible, clear, limpid, comprehensible, explainable, explicable, explicatable

In a sentence

I found myself in an obscure wood.

1892, Denton Jaques Snider, Inferno, 1, 1-2 (originally by Dante Alighieri)

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*(s)ḱeh₃-
2. Proto-Italic*skoiros
3. Latinobscūrus“dark, dusky, indistinct”
4. Old Frenchobscur
5. Middle Englishobscure
6. Englishobscure

From Middle English obscure, from Old French obscur, from Latin obscūrus (“dark, dusky, indistinct”), from ob- + *scūrus, from Proto-Italic *skoiros, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₃-. Doublet of oscuro.