obscure

Many people shared an obscure sense of gratification that [Dylan] Thomas had died young, as a poet should. —Adam Kirsch, New Yorker, 5 July 2004

But by 1830 the Boston Mission Board was desperate enough that it targeted an obscure sect of Oriental Christians, the Nestorians in faraway Iran, as a possibility for conversion. —Robert D. Kaplan, The Arabists, 1993

I knew they were special from their jeans and T-shirts, their knowing, ironic looks when obscure works of literature were referred to. —Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, 1991

Now at last Bacon could refer when he chose to his father's high position and his father's service—and no man could say it was done for self-aggrandizement, as a son who is obscure bespeaks the glory of past forebears. —Catherine Drinker Bowen, Francis Bacon, 1963

The movie is full of obscure references that only pop culture enthusiasts will understand.

The origins of the language are obscure.

Throughout this book, the ground of fact becomes obscured entirely by a deep layer of speculative quicksand. —Helen Vendler, New Republic, 10 June 2002

But evening comes or even noon and some combination of nervous tensions obscures my memories of what whiskey costs me in the way of physical and intellectual well-being. —John Cheever, New Yorker, 13 Aug. 1990

… [Mr. Schuller's] … “Early Jazz” brought a sometimes Olympian precision to writing about an art that has often languished in the whale's belly of sociology, obscured by pretension and blubbery thinking. —Stanley Crouch, New York Times Book Review, 2 Apr. 1989

It was eight o'clock when we landed; we walked for a short time on the shore enjoying the transitory light, and then retired to the inn and contemplated the lovely scene of waters, woods, and mountains, obscured in darkness, yet still displaying their black outlines. —Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818

The true history has been obscured by legends about what happened.

They accused the company of trying to obscure the fact that the product poses a health risk.

… who shall … through the palpable obscure find out his uncouth way … ? —John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667