Obtain vs Obscure - What's the difference?
obtain | obscure |
To get hold of; to gain possession of, to procure; to acquire, in any way.
* 1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , Luke XVIII:
* 1814 , (Jane Austen), (Mansfield Park) :
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)
, volume=189, issue=2, page=48, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= (obsolete) To secure (that) a specific objective or state of affairs be reached.
* 1722 , (Daniel Defoe), (Colonel Jack) :
(obsolete) To prevail, be victorious; to succeed.
* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , III.2:
* 1701 , (Jonathan Swift), Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome :
(obsolete) To hold; to keep, possess or occupy.
* 1671 , (John Milton), (Paradise Regained) , Book I:
To exist or be the case; to hold true, be in force.
* 1908 , (Jack London), (The Iron Heel) , ,
* 1992 , (Neal Stephenson), (Snow Crash) , Bantam Spectra, p. 460,
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)
In transitive terms the difference between obtain and obscure
is that obtain is to get hold of; to gain possession of, to procure; to acquire, in any way while obscure is to hide, put out of sight etc.In intransitive obsolete terms the difference between obtain and obscure
is that obtain is to prevail, be victorious; to succeed while obscure is to conceal oneself; to hide.As an adjective obscure is
dark, faint or indistinct.obtain
English
Verb
(en verb)- And a certayne ruler axed him: sayinge: Goode Master: what ought I to do, to obtaine eternall lyfe?
- Julia was quite as eager for novelty and pleasure as Maria, though she might not have struggled through so much to obtain them, and could better bear a subordinate situation.
The tao of tech, passage=But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. Partly, this is a result of how online advertising has traditionally worked: advertisers pay for clicks, and a click is a click, however it's obtained .}}
- he was condemned to die for the felony, and being so well known for an old offender, had certainly died, but the merchant, upon his earnest application, had obtained that he should be transported, on condition that he restored all the rest of his bills, which he had done accordingly.
- “O daughter deare!” (said she) “despeire no whit; / For never sore but might a salve obtain [...].”
- This, though it failed at present, yet afterward obtained , and was a mighty step to the ruin of the commonwealth.
- His mother then is mortal, but his Sire / He who obtains the monarchy of Heav'n, / And what will he not do to advance his Son?
- Even though the Pervaise confession had never come to light, no reasonable doubt could obtain ; for the act in question was on a par with countless other acts committed by the oligarchs, and, before them, by the capitalists.
- But the hostage situation no longer obtains , and so Uncle Enzo feels it important to stop Rife now,
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.
