Entry Word: mysterious

Function: adjective

Meaning: 1 being beyond one's powers to know, understand, or explain <the huge stone statues on Easter Island are ancient, mysterious, and haunting>

Synonyms cryptic, darkling, deep, enigmatic (also enigmatical), impenetrable, inscrutable, mystic, occult, uncanny

Related Words dark, murky, obscure, shadowy, vague; ambiguous, equivocal; incomprehensible, unfathomable, unintelligible; inexplicable, unaccountable, unexplainable; unanswerable, unknowable; metaphysical, mystical, supernatural; abstruse, esoteric, recondite; baffling, bewildering, confounding, confusing, mystifying, perplexing, puzzling

Near Antonyms fathomable, intelligible, understandable; clear, obvious, open-and-shut, plain, straightforward, transparent

2 having an often intentionally veiled or uncertain meaning <the strangerʼs mysterious words> — see obscure 1