OBSCURITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does obscurity mean? 

• OBSCURITY (noun)
  The noun OBSCURITY has 3 senses:

1. the quality of being unclear or abstruse and hard to understand

2. an obscure and unimportant standing; not well known

3. the state of being indistinct or indefinite for lack of adequate illumination

  Familiarity information: OBSCURITY used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OBSCURITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of being unclear or abstruse and hard to understand

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

abstruseness; obscureness; obscurity; reconditeness

Hypernyms ("obscurity" is a kind of...):

incomprehensibility (the quality of being incomprehensible)

Antonym:

clarity (free from obscurity and easy to understand; the comprehensibility of clear expression)

Derivation:

obscure (not clearly expressed or understood)

obscure (marked by difficulty of style or expression)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An obscure and unimportant standing; not well known

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

he worked in obscurity for many years

Hypernyms ("obscurity" is a kind of...):

standing (social or financial or professional status or reputation)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "obscurity"):

anonymity; namelessness (the state of being anonymous)

humbleness; lowliness; obscureness; unimportance (the state of being humble and unimportant)

nowhere (an insignificant place)

limbo; oblivion (the state of being disregarded or forgotten)

Antonym:

prominence (the state of being prominent: widely known or eminent)

Derivation:

obscure (not famous or acclaimed)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The state of being indistinct or indefinite for lack of adequate illumination

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

obscureness; obscurity

Hypernyms ("obscurity" is a kind of...):

semidarkness (partial darkness)

 Context examples 

“Both the inspector and the doctor will meet me here at that hour, and I hope by that time to have cleared up any little obscurity which the case may still present.”

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He resumed—And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Oh! but dear Miss Woodhouse, she is now in such retirement, such obscurity, so thrown away.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

After that Maria dropped back into her old obscurity and Martin began to notice the respectful manner in which he was regarded by the small fry of the neighborhood.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I meekly ordered a bit of fish and a steak, and stood before the fire musing on his obscurity.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I must look down upon anything contented with obscurity when it might rise to distinction.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

As we peered from the darkened sitting-room of the lodging-house, one more dim light glimmered high up through the obscurity.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Young Overton’s face assumed the bothered look of the man who is more accustomed to using his muscles than his wits, but by degrees, with many repetitions and obscurities which I may omit from his narrative, he laid his strange story before us.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As the eyes became more used to the obscurity one learned that there were different degrees of darkness among the trees—that some were dimly visible, while between and among them there were coal-black shadowed patches, like the mouths of caves, from which I shrank in horror as I passed.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The hunting was perilous; yet the boats, lowered day after day, were swallowed up in the grey obscurity, and were seen no more till nightfall, and often not till long after, when they would creep in like sea-wraiths, one by one, out of the grey.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)