All 10 Uses of
obscure
in
The Scarlet Letter
- Many characteristics—and those, too, which contribute not the least forcibly to impart resemblance in a sketch—must have vanished, or been obscured, before I met the General.
Chpt Intr. (definition 1)obscured = made less visible
- The founders of the greater part of the families which now compose the aristocracy of Salem might here be traced, from the petty and obscure beginnings of their traffic, at periods generally much posterior to the Revolution, upward to what their children look upon as long-established rank, Prior to the Revolution there is a dearth of records; the earlier documents and archives of the Custom-House having, probably, been carried off to Halifax, when all the king's officials accompanied…
Chpt Intr. (definition 2)obscure = undistinguished
- With his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen, but majestic, figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol and the little roll of explanatory manuscript.
Chpt Intr. (definition 3) *obscurely = in a manner that is not clearly seen (like a ghost)
- Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out...†
Chpt 2 (definition 1)
- It may seem marvellous that, with the world before her—kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure—free to return to her birth-place, or to any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being...
Chpt 5 (definition 2) *obscure = not known to many people
- [the scarlet letter] gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts. She was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. ...must she receive those intimations—so obscure, yet so distinct—as truth?†
Chpt 5 (definition 1)
- By those best acquainted with his habits, the paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted for by his too earnest devotion to study ... and more than all, to the fasts and vigils of which he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the grossness of this earthly state from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp.
Chpt 9 (definition 1) *obscuring = making less visible
- It was an obscure night in early May.†
Chpt 12 (definition 1)
- The forest was obscure around them, and creaked with a blast that was passing through it.†
Chpt 17 (definition 1)
- All at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees.†
Chpt 18 (definition 1)