obscurity

1. 1.

   the quality of being unclear or abstruse and hard to understand

   Synonymsobscurenessabstrusenessreconditeness

   Antonymsclarity

   Broaderincomprehensibility
2. 2.

   an obscure and unimportant standing; not well known

   “he worked in obscurity for many years”

   Antonymsprominence

   Broaderstanding

   Narroweranonymityhumblenessnowhereoblivion
3. 3.

   the state of being indistinct or indefinite for lack of adequate illumination

   Synonymsobscureness

   Broadersemidarkness

Other forms of obscurity

plural

obscurities·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about obscurity

What does obscurity mean?

obscurity means "the quality of being unclear or abstruse and hard to understand". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in obscurity?

obscurity has 4 syllables: ob-scur-i-ty. The stress falls on "scur". In IPA it is /əbˈskjʊɹəti/.

What is another word for obscurity?

Close synonyms include obscureness, abstruseness, reconditeness, obscureness. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of obscurity?

The recorded antonyms are clarity, prominence.

Is obscurity a common word?

obscurity is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.