arcane

adjective

ar·​cane är-ˈkān 

: known or knowable only to a few people : secret

arcane rites

an arcane ritual

broadly : mysterious, obscure

arcane explanations

arcane technical details

Synonyms

• esoteric
• profound

Examples of arcane in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Speedrunners have also found some arcane sequence skips to get around certain bosses or methods for putting off some boss fights until later than the developers intended. —ArsTechnica, 11 Sep. 2025

The question of which individual investor owns which share of which company is surprisingly murky, an artifact of arcane market plumbing made more difficult by the rise of ETFs and fractional share ownership. —Rohan Goswami, semafor.com, 11 Sep. 2025

Purpose trusts have been around for decades as part of the arcane laws governing how estates are managed. —Eleanor Pringle, Fortune, 9 Sep. 2025

As the lesson droned on, the huge, inevitable poster on the classroom wall gave the students something arcane to look at and study as an alternative to dozing off and getting a tongue-lashing and possibly a piece of chalk tossed at your head. —David Szondy august 27, New Atlas, 27 Aug. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Latin arcānus "secret, private, intimate," from arca "chest, coffer, box" + -ānus -an entry 2 — more at ark

First Known Use

1547, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for arcane

• abstain
• airplane
• alkane
• arraign
• attain
• backplane
• betaine
• biplane
• blockchain
• butane
• campaign
• cetane