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Cryptic vs Obvious - What's the difference?

cryptic | obvious |

As adjectives the difference between cryptic and obvious

is that cryptic is having hidden meaning while obvious is easily discovered, seen, or understood; self-explanatory.

As a noun cryptic

is (informal) a cryptic crossword.

cryptic

Alternative forms

* cryptick (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Having hidden meaning.
  • Mystified or of an obscure nature.
  • * Glanvill
  • Her [nature's] more cryptic ways of working.
  • Involving use of code or cipher/cypher.
  • (zoology) Well camouflaged; having good camouflage.
  • Lonomia caterpillars are extremely cryptic .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (informal) A cryptic crossword.
  • * 1996 , Mary McCarthy, Remember Me (page 85)
  • He settled down to the cryptic in the Independent . He loved his crossword. It kept him mentally active, just as gossip did his wife.
  • * 2009 , Bill Taylor, Building a crossword'' (in ''Toronto Star , 1 February 2009)
  • This writer has been solving cryptics for 40 years and can usually crack Araucaria, though it might take a couple of days.

    Derived terms

    * cryptically * cryptogram

    obvious

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Easily discovered, seen, or understood; self-explanatory.
  • *
  • *:Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban's was a presence not to be concealed.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-17, volume=408, issue=8849, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Down towns , passage=It is not obvious , to economists anyway, that cities should exist at all. Crowds of people mean congestion and costly land and labour. But there are also well-known advantages to bunching up. When transport costs are sufficiently high a firm can spend more money shipping goods to clusters of consumers than it saves on cheap land and labour.}}

    Synonyms

    * See also .

    Antonyms

    * unobvious * non-obvious * subtle

    Derived terms

    * obviously * obviousness

    See also

    * plain * clear * evident * manifest