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Obscure; difficult; perplexing; trying; as, a crabbed author. "Crabbed eloquence." Chaucer. How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose. Milton.

A road that crosses another; an obscure road intersecting or avoiding the main road.

To darken to obscure. [Obs.] Milton.

To make dark or black; to deprite of light; to obscure; as, a darkened room. They [locusts] covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened. Ex. x. 15. So spake the Sovran Voice; and clouds began To darken all the hill. Milton.

With imperfect light, clearness, or knowledge; obscurely; dimly; blindly; uncertainly. What fame to future times conveys but darkly down. Dryden. so softly dark and darkly pure. Byron.

Dark; gloomy; obscure; shaded; cheerless. [Poetic] He brought him through a darksome narrow pass To a broad gate, all built of beaten gold. Spenser.

To deprive of gloss or brilliancy; to obscure; as, to deaden gilding by a coat of size.

Obscurely heard; stifled; deadened. [R.] A deaf murmur through the squadron went. Dryden.

Without sense of sounds; obscurely.

hend; profound; -- opposed to shallow or superficial; intricate; mysterious; not obvious; obscure; as, a deep subject or plot. Speculations high or deep. Milton. A question deep almost as the mystery of life. De Quincey. O Lord, . . . thy thought are very deep. Ps. xcii. 5.

ve line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. Burke.

To spy out or discover by the eye, as objects distant or obscure; to espy; to recognize; to discern; to discover. And the house of Joseph sent to descry Bethel. Judg. i. 23. Edmund, I think, is gone . . . to descry The strength o' the enemy. Shak. And now their way to earth they had descried. Milton.…

Not bright or distinct; wanting luminousness or clearness; obscure in luster or sound; dusky; darkish; obscure; indistinct; overcast; tarnished. The dim magnificence of poetry. Whewell. How is the gold become dim! Lam. iv. 1. I never saw The heavens so dim by day. Shak. Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, T…

In a dim or obscure manner; not brightly or clearly; with imperfect sight.

hed (furniture, equipments, etc.); to strip; to render destitute; to divest. I am a thing obscure, disfurnished of All merit, that can raise me higher. Massinger.

Indistinct; faint; obscure, as from distance. Some distant knowledge. Shak. A distant glimpse. W. Irving.

That which is held as an opinion; a tenet; a doctrine. The obscure and loose dogmas of early antiquity. Whewell.

A word or expression admitting of a double interpretation, one of which is often obscure or indelicate.

Not bright or clear to the eye; wanting in liveliness of color or luster; not vivid; obscure; dim; as, a dull fire or lamp; a dull red or yellow; a dull mirror.

To make dusk or obscure. [R.] Not utterly defaced, but only duskened. Nicolls.