| 释义 | obscurity|əbˈskjʊərɪtɪ|
Also 5 obscurete(e, -itee, 5–6 obscurte, 6–7 -itie.
[a. F. obscurité (1305 in Hatz.-Darm.), also in OF. obscurté, oscurté, ad. L. obscūritāt-em, f. obscūr-us obscure a.: see -ity.]
The quality or condition of being obscure.
1. Absence of light (total or partial); darkness; dimness, dullness; concr. a dark place.
1481Caxton Myrr. ii. xxv. 118 This thynge is the clowde, But it hath not so moche obscurete that it taketh fro vs the clernes of the day. c1500Melusine 22 None obscurte or darknes was seen about it. 1611Bible Isa. lix. 9 We waite for light, but behold obscuritie. 1791Mrs. Radcliffe Rom. Forest i, The obscurity of the dawn confined his views. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xlvii. (1856) 444 A strange, palpable obscurity..gradually wrapped itself over every thing. 1854J. S. C. Abbott Napoleon (1855) II. xx. 377 Caulaincourt..galloped in the deep obscurity by another route to Paris.
2. The quality or condition of being unknown, inconspicuous, or insignificant.
1619Drayton Idea x, Thy gifts thou in obscurity dost waste. 1659B. Harris Parival's Iron Age 237 A certain Fellow of the very dregs of the People, who had dyed in the obscurity of his birth, had not this furious revolt..elevated him. 1730–46Thomson Autumn 1023 The sigh for suffering Worth Lost in obscurity. 1873Hamerton Intell. Life x. iii. (1875) 349 The greater number have to remain in positions of obscurity.
b. An obscure or unknown person.
1822Athenæum 14 Jan. 51/2 Herr Zart goes through the whole number of obscurities from Leibnitz to Kant. 1890B. L. Gildersleeve Ess. & Stud. 306, I left them all and married this poor, young obscurity.
3. The quality or condition of not being clearly known or comprehended.
1474Caxton Chesse 109 The thought is enuoluped in obscurete and vnder the clowdes. 1603Holland Plutarch's Mor. 62 In Philosophie, where at the first there seemeth..to be some strangenesse, obscuritie, and I wot not what barrennesse. 1674in Essex Papers (Camden) I. 232, I must confess I have ever bin uneasy to finde things in so much obscurity. 1813J. Thomson Lect. Inflam. 503 To remove any part of the obscurity which prevails with regard to the nature and progress of mortification. 1876Humphreys Coin-Coll. Man. ii. 7 The precise date of the origin of coined money is lost in obscurity.
4. Lack of perspicuity in language; uncertainty of meaning; unintelligibleness.
1538Starkey England ii. i. 145 Al obscuryte and darkenes both in wrytyng and in al communycatyon spryngyth therof. 1602Campion Eng. Poesy Wks. (Bullen) 231 There is no writing too brief that, without obscurity, comprehends the intent of the writer. 1751Johnson Rambler No. 169 ⁋13 One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity. 1870Swinburne Ess. & Stud. (1875) 273 Real and offensive obscurity comes merely of inadequate thought embodied in inadequate language.
b. An obscure point; an unintelligible, or not clearly intelligible, speech or passage.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. i. (1495) 3 Desyrous to vnderstonde the obscuretees or derknesse of holy scriptures. 1729Butler Serm. Pref., But even obscurities arising from other causes than the abstruseness of the argument may not be always inexcusable. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 43 The obscurities of early Greek poets arose necessarily out of the state of language. |
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