- in a way that is not expressed clearly or plainly; ambiguously or vaguely: This question, although obscurely phrased, is one of the easiest interview questions to answer if you approach it properly.
- in a way that is hard to discern or identify, or is not clear to the understanding: The end of the story made me wonder if Lila had only imagined the whole thing—a reading that felt obscurely troubling to me.
- in a way that is not prominent or famous or that garners little public attention or importance: In the 17th century, the game of cricket grew up obscurely and locally as a game of the common people.
- in a place that is out of the way and not easy to find or notice: The church is small and stands to one side of the village, rather obscurely.We trekked to an obscurely located arch of rock, hidden in a remote pocket of northern Arizona.
- in a dim or murky way; faintly: In Poe’s poem, the “sad Soul” doomed to live in Dream-Land sees everything through “darkened glasses,” erroneously and obscurely.
