All 8 Uses of

obscure

in

A Soldier of the Great War

Here they would see no villages, Rome would be obscured, and they would have only stars because the moon would rise that night, Alessandro said, late, but when the moon did rise it would be perfectly full.
Chpt 1 (definition 1)

obscured = hid or made less visible or understandable

She was attired in black, and a heavy veil obscured her face.
Chpt 1 (definition 1)

The sky had grown light enough to obscure the stars and planets.
Chpt 1 (definition 1) *

obscure = hide; or make less visible

He went via narrow and obscure channels, through which he spent much of the time backing out to let oncoming boats pass under bridges so low that he and Alessandro had to run from end to end of the gondola to tilt the bow and stern to allow it to slide underneath.
Chpt 5 (definition 2)

obscure = not known to many people; or undistinguished

The women, whose husbands had been in the north for years, and who had been peeking at the two soldiers as they swam, had worked themselves into a frenzy. As if afflicted by a disease of the nerves, they made strange, unmistakable, and yet obscure gestures with their lips, tongues, jaws, eyes, hands, and fingers. ... Slamming his fist down now and then, he failed to notice that his daughter's eyes were glazed, or that his daughter-in-law stood behind him for a few seconds, placed both her hands on her breasts, touched her tongue to her nose, closed her eyes, gyrated her pelvis, and moaned like a wolf.
Chpt 5 (definition 3) *

obscure = hidden (from the man who is talking and slamming his fists down)

His eyes sought its infinitely high ceiling, and although they found nothing he felt as if he were going forward not to some obscure death but to the resurrection of beauty and a meeting with those who had gone before.
Chpt 7 (definition 2) *

obscure = unimportant or undistinguished

"How many dozens of obscure Latin and Greek tomes did you read as the marsh ebbed to and fro, the insects buzzed around the marble mausoleums, and the moths ate your father's tweed hunting jackets?" he asked, after failing to salute.
Chpt 7 (definition 2)

obscure = not known to many people; or undistinguished

I have never seen anything more riveting than a mountain division, roped in a thousand teams, moving at night, each man with his light, like strings of paper lanterns floating up a glacier half obscured by clouds in a lake of black.
Chpt 10 (definition 1)

obscured = hid or made less visible or understandable

Definitions:

(1) (obscure as in: it obscured my view)
to block from view or make less visible or understandable

editor's notes: Although 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."

(2) (obscure as in: knows the famous and the obscure)
not known to many people; or unimportant or undistinguished
editor's notes: More 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."

(3) (obscure as in: the view or directions are obscure)
not clearly seen, understood, or expressed

editor's notes: Although 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.