1
as in cryptic
being beyond one's powers to know, understand, or explain
the huge stone statues on Easter Island are ancient, mysterious, and haunting
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2
as in ambiguous
having an often intentionally veiled or uncertain meaning
the stranger's mysterious prediction
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of mysterious
The pyramid is real, and genuinely mysterious.
—
Hari Kunzru, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026
Only select bidders are invited to this mysterious underground space.
—Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 27 Jan. 2026
The mysterious Egg scoffs at Dunk’s rope belt but offers to be his squire.
—Sarah Larson, New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2026
Quinton Aaron is fighting for his life after experiencing a mysterious neck pain which prompted his wife to call for help.
—Tracy Wright, FOXNews.com, 26 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for mysterious
Hari Kunzru, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026
Only select bidders are invited to this mysterious underground space.
—Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 27 Jan. 2026
The mysterious Egg scoffs at Dunk’s rope belt but offers to be his squire.
—Sarah Larson, New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2026
Quinton Aaron is fighting for his life after experiencing a mysterious neck pain which prompted his wife to call for help.
—Tracy Wright, FOXNews.com, 26 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for mysterious
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mysterious
Adjective
-
Disco, Occasionally, the British superstar’s fourth studio album that’s been teased via a creeping, ongoing rollout with cryptic posters, a WhatsApp chat, listening sessions in indie record shops and a series of city residencies in place of a sprawling global tour.—
Jeff Benjamin,
Forbes.com,
23 Jan. 2026
-
The announcement of a new tour and album comes weeks after Styles teased devotees with posters, videos, a cryptic website and an intriguing song snippet starting in late December.—
Melissa Ruggieri,
USA Today,
22 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Sheinbaum has been incredibly vague about where her country stood, and this week has given roundabout and ambiguous answers to inquiries about the shipments, and dodged reporters questions in her morning press briefings.—
Michelle L. Price,
Fortune,
30 Jan. 2026
-
Sheinbaum has been incredibly vague about where her country stood, and this week has given roundabout and ambiguous answers to inquiries about the shipments, and dodged reporters' questions in her morning press briefings.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
30 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
The biological mother, an enigmatic teenage employee of the bar, has vanished.—
Chloe Schama,
Vogue,
24 Jan. 2026
-
Oracles are by their nature enigmatic, obscure, gnomic, a mode that the aleatory perambulations of the Eureka engine would seem predisposed toward producing, but narrative also has a venerable tradition of being mechanically generated, despite the seeming complexity of plot.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
21 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Jim is the only one standing still, staring straight at the camera with his intense, dark-blue eyes.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
28 Jan. 2026
-
Small described the shooter as a male who was wearing dark clothing and black and white shoes.—
Tom Ignudo,
CBS News,
28 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Although Nuccio is as down to earth as anyone could be, and definitely not a mystic, there can be no disputing his stature as a remarkable man.—
Joshua Siskin,
Oc Register,
8 Jan. 2026
-
Madonna was born and raised Catholic but has long practiced the Jewish mystic tradition of Kabbalah and adopted the Hebrew name Esther in 2004, per The Forward.—
Sophie Dodd,
PEOPLE,
21 Dec. 2025
Adjective
-
Malcolm’s subjects are very old-school, doctrinaire, rigid Freudian psychoanalysts who get involved in impossibly obscure academic debates.—
The New Yorker,
New Yorker,
28 Jan. 2026
-
But then last January, an obscure AI startup named DeepSeek released a generative AI platform, R1, which was comparable to ChatGPT but purporting to use just a fraction of Nvidia’s bleeding-edge chips.—
Charlie Campbell,
Time,
27 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
In the work, traditional folklore and marvelous, uncanny incidents are often the sites of resistance against colonialism or enslavement.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
28 Jan. 2026
-
The Boy Who Knew Too Much tells the true story of a young boy named Christian Haupt, who, from a very young age, displays an uncanny knowledge of baseball and vivid memories of a past life as Lou Gehrig, the famous Yankee.—
Nellie Andreeva,
Deadline,
27 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
But economists appeared skeptical about the effectiveness of Beijing’s plans to boost services spending, cautioning that the plan’s success hinges on deeper reforms to raise household income and strengthen social welfare.—
Anniek Bao,
CNBC,
30 Jan. 2026
-
The influential investor has the respect of Wall Street and deep knowledge of complex financial markets.—
Matt Egan,
CNN Money,
30 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Mysterious.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mysterious. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.
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