Contain vs Obscure - What's the difference?
contain | obscure | Related terms |
(lb) To hold inside.
*
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (lb) To include as a part.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2014-04-21, volume=411, issue=8884, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (lb) To put constraint upon; to restrain; to confine; to keep within bounds.
* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)
* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
*
To have as an element.
To restrain desire; to live in continence or chastity.
* Bible, vii. 9.
Dark, faint or indistinct.
* (Dante Alighieri), , 1, 1-2
* Bible, Proverbs xx. 20
Hidden, out of sight or inconspicuous.
* (William Shakespeare)
* Sir J. Davies
Difficult to understand.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (label) To render obscure; to darken; to make dim; to keep in the dark; to hide; to make less visible, intelligible, legible, glorious, beautiful, or illustrious.
* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
* (William Wake) (1657-1737)
*{{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
, passage=But Richmond
(label) To hide, put out of sight etc.
* (Bill Watterson), Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat , page 62
To conceal oneself; to hide.
* (Beaumont and Fletcher) (1603-1625)
Contain is a related term of obscure.
As verbs the difference between contain and obscure
is that contain is (lb) to hold inside while obscure is (label) to render obscure; to darken; to make dim; to keep in the dark; to hide; to make less visible, intelligible, legible, glorious, beautiful, or illustrious.As an adjective obscure is
dark, faint or indistinct.contain
English
Verb
(en verb)- At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.
Welcome to the plastisphere, passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria,
Subtle effects, passage=Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.}}
- The king's person contains the unruly people from evil occasions.
- Fear not, my lord: we can contain ourselves.
- Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.
- But if they can not contain , let them marry.
Synonyms
* (hold inside) enclose, inhold * (include as part) comprise, embody, incorporate, inhold * (limit by restraint) control, curb, repress, restrain, restrict, stifleAntonyms
* (include as part) exclude, omit * (limit by restraint) release, ventExternal links
* * *obscure
English
Adjective
(en-adj)- I found myself in an obscure wood.
- His lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.
- The obscure bird / Clamoured the livelong night.
- the obscure corners of the earth
The machine of a new soul, passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure .}}
Usage notes
* The comparative obscurer and superlative obscurest, though formed by valid rules for English, are less common than more obscure' and ' most obscure .Synonyms
* enigmatic * mysterious * esotericAntonyms
* clearDerived terms
* obscurable * unobscurableVerb
(obscur)- They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights.
- There is scarce any duty which has been so obscured by the writings of learned men as this.
- I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity.
- How! There's bad news. / I must obscure , and hear it.