Smother vs Obscure - What's the difference?
smother | obscure |
To suffocate; stifle; obstruct, more or less completely, the respiration of.
To extinguish or deaden, as fire, by covering, overlaying, or otherwise excluding the air: as, to smother a fire with ashes.
To reduce to a low degree of vigor or activity; suppress or do away with; extinguish; stifle; cover up; conceal; hide: as, the committee's report was smothered.
In cookery: to cook in a close dish: as, beefsteak smothered with onions.
To daub or smear.
To be suffocated.
To breathe with great difficulty by reason of smoke, dust, close covering or wrapping, or the like.
Of a fire: to burn very slowly for want of air; smolder.
Figuratively: to perish, grow feeble, or decline, by suppression or concealment; be stifled; be suppressed or concealed.
(soccer) To get in the way of a kick of the ball
* {{quote-news
, year=2011
, date=December 27
, author=Mike Henson
, title=Norwich 0 - 2 Tottenham
, work=BBC Sport
(Australian rules football) To get in the way of a kick of the ball, preventing it going very far. When a player is kicking the ball, an opponent who is close enough will reach out with his hands and arms to get over the top of it, so the ball hits his hands after leaving the kicker's boot, dribbling away.
That which smothers or appears to smother, particularly
# Smoldering; slow combustion
# Cookware used in such cooking
# The state of being stifled; suppression.
#* Francis Bacon
# Stifling smoke; thick dust.
# (Australian rules football) The act of smothering a kick (see above).
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 verbs the difference between smother and obscure
is that smother is to suffocate; stifle; obstruct, more or less completely, the respiration of 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 a noun smother
is that which smothers or appears to smother, particularly .As an adjective obscure is
dark, faint or indistinct.smother
English
Alternative forms
* (l) (obsolete)Etymology 1
From (etyl) smothren, smortheren, alteration (due to smother, .Verb
(en verb)citation, page= , passage=Emmanuel Adebayor's touch proved a fraction heavy as he guided Van der Vaart's exquisite long ball round John Ruddy, before the goalkeeper did well to smother Bale's shot from Modric's weighted pass.}}
Etymology 2
From (etyl) smother, .Noun
(en noun)- not to keep their suspicions in smother
- (Shakespeare)
References
*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.
