All 16 Uses of
obscure
in
The House of the Seven Gables
- It was like the heavy mass of clouds which we may often see obscuring the sky, and making a gray twilight everywhere, until, towards nightfall, it yields temporarily to a glimpse of sunshine.†
Chpt 3 *obscuring = making less visible or understandable
- Matthew Maule, on the other hand, though an obscure man, was stubborn in the defence of what he considered his right; and, for several years, he succeeded in protecting the acre or two of earth which, with his own toil, he had hewn out of the primeval forest, to be his garden ground and homestead.†
Chpt 1
- They were generally poverty-stricken; always plebeian and obscure; working with unsuccessful diligence at handicrafts; laboring on the wharves, or following the sea, as sailors before the mast; living here and there about the town, in hired tenements, and coming finally to the almshouse as the natural home of their old age.†
Chpt 1
- At last, after creeping, as it were, for such a length of time along the utmost verge of the opaque puddle of obscurity, they had taken that downright plunge which, sooner or later, is the destiny of all families, whether princely or plebeian.†
Chpt 1
- There, again, she has upset a tumbler of marbles, all of which roll different ways, and each individual marble, devil-directed, into the most difficult obscurity that it can find.†
Chpt 2
- After a little while, the twilight, deepened by the shadows of the fruit-trees and the surrounding buildings, threw an obscurity over the garden.†
Chpt 6
- In the remoter parts of the room, however, its walls being so ill adapted to reflect light, there was nearly the same obscurity as before.†
Chpt 6
- But soon, her senses being very acute, she became conscious of an irregular respiration in an obscure corner of the room.†
Chpt 6
- At this arched window, throwing it open, but keeping himself in comparative obscurity by means of the curtain, Clifford had an opportunity of witnessing such a portion of the great world's movement as might be supposed to roll through one of the retired streets of a not very populous city.†
Chpt 11
- He looked up,—at first with a stern, keen glance, which penetrated at once into the obscurity behind the arched window,—then with a smile which might be conceived as diffusing a dog-day sultriness for the space of several yards about him.†
Chpt 11
- The truth is, that, once in every half-century, at longest, a family should be merged into the great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget all about its ancestors.†
Chpt 12
- Now, what was unquestionably important, a portion of these popular rumors could be traced, though rather doubtfully and indistinctly, to chance words and obscure hints of the executed wizard's son, and the father of this present Matthew Maule.†
Chpt 13
- With the lapse of every moment, the garden grew more picturesque; the fruit-trees, shrubbery, and flower-bushes had a dark obscurity among them.†
Chpt 14
- but in some low and obscure nook,—some narrow closet on the ground-floor, shut, locked and bolted, and the key flung away,—or beneath the marble pavement, in a stagnant water-puddle, with the richest pattern of mosaic-work above,—may lie a corpse, half decayed, and still decaying, and diffusing its death-scent all through the palace!†
Chpt 15
- Through the passage-way there was a dark vista into the lighter but still obscure interior of the parlor.†
Chpt 19
- Before her eyes had adapted themselves to the obscurity, a hand grasped her own with a firm but gentle and warm pressure, thus imparting a welcome which caused her heart to leap and thrill with an indefinable shiver of enjoyment.†
Chpt 20
Definitions:
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(1)
(obscure as in: it obscured my view) to block from view or make less visible or understandableAlthough this meaning of obscure typically refers to seeing or understanding, it can also refer to situation where something makes something else harder to detect or as when a noise makes another noise difficult to hear. Similarly it can reference something overshadowing something else, as in "Her memory of her dog's death was obscured by her brother's death the next day."
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(2)
(obscure as in: the view or directions are obscure) not clearly seen, understood, or expressedAlthough this meaning of obscure typically refers to seeing or understanding, it can refer to difficulty with any type of detection as when something is hard to hear. It can also more specifically mean vague, or mysterious, or unknown by anyone. Much more rarely, it can mean secretive.
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(3)
(obscure as in: the famous and the obscure) not known to many people; or unimportant or undistinguishedMore rarely, this meaning of obscure can be used for:
- seemingly unimportant -- as in "I want her on the team. She always seems to ask obscure questions that reveal problems in a different light."
- humble (typically only found in classic literature) -- as in "Nobody at the table would have guessed of her obscure family background."
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(4)
(obscure as in: was obscure, but now bright) dark or dingy; or inconspicuous (not very noticeable)This meaning of obscure is more commonly seen in classic literature than in modern writing.
- (5) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)