Intricate vs Obscure - What's the difference?
intricate | obscure |
Having a great deal of fine detail or complexity.
:
*(Joseph Addison) (1672–1719)
*:His style was fit to convey the most intricate business to the understanding with the utmost clearness.
*
*:As a matter of fact its narrow ornate façade presented not a single quiet space that the eyes might rest on after a tiring attempt to follow and codify the arabesques, foliations, and intricate vermiculations of what some disrespectfully dubbed as “near-aissance.”
To become enmeshed or entangled.
* 1864 October 18, J.E. Freund, “
To enmesh or entangle: to cause to intricate.
* 1994 December 12, , “
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)
As adjectives the difference between intricate and obscure
is that intricate is having a great deal of fine detail or complexity while obscure is dark, faint or indistinct.As verbs the difference between intricate and obscure
is that intricate is to become enmeshed or entangled 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.intricate
English
Alternative forms
* entricateEtymology 1
From (etyl) intricatus'' (past participle of ''intricare ).Adjective
(en adjective)Etymology 2
As the adjective; or by analogy with extricateVerb
(intricat)How to Avoid the Use of Lint”, letter to the editor, in The New York Times (1864 October 23):
- washes off easily, without sticking or intricating into the wound.
Avoid Dunkirk II” (essay), in The New York Times :
- But the British and French won't hear of that; they want to get their troops extricated and our ground troops intricated .
Anagrams
* ----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.