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Obscure vs Provincial - What's the difference?

obscure | provincial |

As adjectives the difference between obscure and provincial

is that obscure is dark, faint or indistinct while provincial is of or pertaining to province; constituting a province; as, a provincial government; a provincial dialect.

As a verb 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 a noun provincial is

a person belonging to a province; one who is provincial.

obscure

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • Dark, faint or indistinct.
  • * (Dante Alighieri), , 1, 1-2
  • I found myself in an obscure wood.
  • * Bible, Proverbs xx. 20
  • His lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.
  • Hidden, out of sight or inconspicuous.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • The obscure bird / Clamoured the livelong night.
  • * Sir J. Davies
  • the obscure corners of the earth
  • Difficult to understand.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= 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 * esoteric

    Antonyms

    * clear

    Derived terms

    * obscurable * unobscurable

    Verb

    (obscur)
  • (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)
  • They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights.
  • * (William Wake) (1657-1737)
  • There is scarce any duty which has been so obscured by the writings of learned men as this.
  • *{{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
  • I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity.
  • To conceal oneself; to hide.
  • * (Beaumont and Fletcher) (1603-1625)
  • How! There's bad news. / I must obscure , and hear it.

    provincial

    English

    (Webster 1913)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Of or pertaining to province; constituting a province; as, a provincial government; a provincial dialect.
  • Exhibiting the ways or manners of a province; characteristic of the inhabitants of a province.
  • * ,
  • Provincial airs and graces.
  • Not cosmopolitan; countrified; not polished; rude; hence, narrow; illiberal.
  • * Ayliffe,
  • Of or pertaining to an ecclesiastical province, or to the jurisdiction of an archbishop; not ecumenical; as, a provincial synod.
  • (obsolete) Of or pertaining to Provence; Provencal.
  • * ,
  • With two Provincial roses on my razed shoes.
  • limited in outlook; narrow
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person belonging to a province; one who is provincial.
  • (Roman Catholicism) A monastic superior, who, under the general of his order, has the direction of all the religious houses of the same fraternity in a given district, called a province of the order.
  • * 2009 , (Diarmaid MacCulloch), A History of Christianity , Penguin 2010, p. 700:
  • The Franciscan provincial Diego de Landa set up a local Inquisition which unleashed a campaign of interrogation and torture on the Indio population.
  • A country bumpkin.
  • ----