| 单词 | obscure |
| 释义 | ob·scure I. 1. < the obscure dusk of the shuttered room > 2. a. of a place < these obscure regions > < settled in an obscure country village > b. < an obscure reference > < an obscure writing > c. < such obscure everyday people > < an obscure Roman poet > < this obscure cottage housed an unnoticed genius > d. < obscure markings on the wings of a butterfly > < a delicate pattern of obscure lines > e. < an obscure pulse > < sounds obscure in the distance > 3. < the obscure powers of evil > < standing obscure in the deepest shade > 4. Synonyms: < there are more obscure poems written and printed every year than clear ones — R.B.West > < the communiqué was apt to be obscure as to its sense, so that the priests might have to clarify it — W.W.Howells > dark may refer to what is imperfectly revealed and hence somewhat mysterious, perhaps with ominous or sinister suggestion < they hunt for clues to our present duty and future destiny among the dark sayings of Daniel, Micah, and the Book of Revelations — Brand Blanshard > vague may describe that which lacks clear distinctness as not susceptible to definitive formulation or as imperfectly conceived or not definitively thought out < much vaguer and indeed obscure allegory — Rex Warner > < only a vague, genial theory as a policy with inadequate preparation, and lacking a clear-cut, definitive, and detailed plan — R.E.Danielson > < a vague sense of obligation was replaced by an exacting set of rules — R.W.Southern > enigmatic refers to what puzzles by suggestive unclarity of allusion or ramification < this enigmatic utterance — Jack London > < fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae's enigmatic words about not daring to ask her what he fain would — Thomas Hardy > cryptic may describe that which is purposefully darkly enigmatic or esoteric < a very cryptic text — S.F.Mason > < that cryptic unintelligibility, the sibylline phrase, which, if it has a meaning, sometimes guards it all too well from the bewildered reader — American Guide Series: Massachusetts > ambiguous applies to communication admitting of more than one interpretation < most words are ambiguous as regards their plain sense, especially in poetry — I.A.Richards > < the title of this chapter is ambiguous — A.S.Eddington > equivocal may describe whatever admits of false interpretation, often purposefully phrased or delivered as an expedient to deceive or evade < to veil the matter, with utterances capable of more equivocal meaning — H.O.Taylor > < the Moral Law speaks in equivocal tones to those who listen most scrupulously for its dictates — L.P.Smith > Synonym: see in addition dark. II. 1. a. < the soot on the lampshade obscured the light > b. < the fine sunburn somewhat obscured the inherent transparency of his complexion — Elinor Wylie > also < no dukedom even, however high-sounding and traditional, could obscure for him native idiocy — Osbert Sitwell > c. < in the shadow of Emerson and Thoreau, the wit of Back Bay is in danger of being obscured — V.L.Parrington > d. < too much use of symbolism obscured his poetic thought > e. < writing obscured by age and mildew > also < reasoning obscured by emotion > f. < her blood being stirred … her judgment was slightly obscured — Arnold Bennett > 2. Synonyms: < there are readers of papers who … like the ordinary, average day, with its good human humdrum; they do not want to have its nature denied or obscured — C.E.Montague > < the faded yellow building, its original austerity of line somewhat obscured by a comfortable porch — American Guide Series: Vermont > dim and bedim stress the diminishing of light or of clarity, intensity, or luster or the consequent diminishing of capacity to see, distinguish, or comprehend; bedim is usually found in a more literary context than dim < celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eyes — Lord Byron > < the old patriotic glow began to dim its ineffectual fires — Howard M. Jones > darken, although like dim and bedim suggesting a diminishing of illumination, is much richer metaphorically in suggesting strongly the alteration of an object or the impairment of clear or normal vision or mental comprehension by reason of confusion, ignorance, or evil < the yearly migrations of passenger pigeons … literally darkening the sky — American Guide Series: Michigan > < his intellect was indeed darkened by many superstitions and prejudices — T.B.Macaulay > < evils enough to darken all his goodness — Shakespeare > eclipse may stand alone in suggesting the effect of an actual astronomical eclipse, the partial or total darkening or concealment of one object by another and, hence, the overshadowing or supplanting of one object by another < in the English field, Anglo-Saxon never eclipsed the study of Shakespeare or Milton — A.L.Guérard > cloud, becloud, fog, befog, obfuscate, and obnubilate all suggest the obstruction or impairment of vision by clouds, fog, or other vapor or, in figurative extension, the making of the mental perception or object of that perception murky or confused. cloud and becloud stress the obscuring of the object, or the murky view of the object; becloud is somewhat more literary than cloud < the beginnings of our physical universe are necessarily beclouded in the swirling mists of countless ages past — F.L.Whipple > < smoke clouding the prospect before us > < the actual issues clouded by prejudice and politics > < reasoning clouded by hysteria > fog and befog are applied possibly more frequently than cloud and becloud to matters of the understanding or mental comprehension and usually suggest a greater obstruction or impairment of clear vision of eye and mind and, so, a greater and more unnecessary indistinctness, illogicality, or confusion; befog is somewhat more literary than fog < the willfully created misunderstandings that so often befog the American political scene — Carl Sandburg > < the landscape fogged by the smoke from the forest fire > < eyes fogged by sleep > < a mind befogged by fatigue > < truth fogged by the imperfections of human sight > < a text fogged by careless scholarship > obfuscatefound usually in a literary context suggests strongly an avoidable, often willful, obscuring of an object or confusing of the mind by darkening or illogicality < the process, not of enlightening but of obfuscating the mind — H.D.Thoreau > obnubilate confines itself in modern usage chiefly to a nontechnical medical use to designate the radical impairing of the mental faculties to the point of torpor < obnubilate the patient with thiopentone and then wake him up with some cerebral stimulant — Lancet > III. |
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