What's the difference between clear and obscure?

Clear


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To make exchanges of checks and bills, and settle balances, as is done in a clearing house.
  • (v. i.) To obtain a clearance; as, the steamer cleared for Liverpool to-day.
  • (superl.) Free from opaqueness; transparent; bright; light; luminous; unclouded.
  • (superl.) Free from ambiguity or indistinctness; lucid; perspicuous; plain; evident; manifest; indubitable.
  • (superl.) Able to perceive clearly; keen; acute; penetrating; discriminating; as, a clear intellect; a clear head.
  • (superl.) Not clouded with passion; serene; cheerful.
  • (superl.) Easily or distinctly heard; audible; canorous.
  • (superl.) Without mixture; entirely pure; as, clear sand.
  • (superl.) Without defect or blemish, such as freckles or knots; as, a clear complexion; clear lumber.
  • (superl.) Free from guilt or stain; unblemished.
  • (superl.) Without diminution; in full; net; as, clear profit.
  • (superl.) Free from impediment or obstruction; unobstructed; as, a clear view; to keep clear of debt.
  • (superl.) Free from embarrassment; detention, etc.
  • (n.) Full extent; distance between extreme limits; especially; the distance between the nearest surfaces of two bodies, or the space between walls; as, a room ten feet square in the clear.
  • (adv.) In a clear manner; plainly.
  • (adv.) Without limitation; wholly; quite; entirely; as, to cut a piece clear off.
  • (v. t.) To render bright, transparent, or undimmed; to free from clouds.
  • (v. t.) To free from impurities; to clarify; to cleanse.
  • (v. t.) To free from obscurity or ambiguity; to relive of perplexity; to make perspicuous.
  • (v. t.) To render more quick or acute, as the understanding; to make perspicacious.
  • (v. t.) To free from impediment or incumbrance, from defilement, or from anything injurious, useless, or offensive; as, to clear land of trees or brushwood, or from stones; to clear the sight or the voice; to clear one's self from debt; -- often used with of, off, away, or out.
  • (v. t.) To free from the imputation of guilt; to justify, vindicate, or acquit; -- often used with from before the thing imputed.
  • (v. t.) To leap or pass by, or over, without touching or failure; as, to clear a hedge; to clear a reef.
  • (v. t.) To gain without deduction; to net.
  • (v. i.) To become free from clouds or fog; to become fair; -- often followed by up, off, or away.
  • (v. i.) To disengage one's self from incumbrances, distress, or entanglements; to become free.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Lucy and Ed will combine coverage of hard and breaking news with a commitment to investigative journalism, which their track record so clearly demonstrates”.
  • (2) These immunocytochemical studies clearly demonstrated that cells encountered within the fibrous intimal thickening in the vein graft were inevitably smooth muscle cell in origin.
  • (3) Intravesical BCG is clearly superior to oral BCG, and controlled studies have demonstrated that percutaneous administration is not necessary.
  • (4) I want to be clear; the American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission,” said Obama in a speech to troops at US Central Command headquarters in Florida.
  • (5) Although solely nociresponsive neurons are clearly likely to fill a role in the processing and signalling of pain in the conscious central nervous system, the way in which such useful specificity could be conveyed by multireceptive neurons is difficult to appreciate.
  • (6) The findings clearly reveal that only the Sertoli-Sertoli junctional site forms a restrictive barrier.
  • (7) Although antihistamines are widely used for symptomatic treatment of seasonal (allergic) rhinitis, the role of histamines in the pathogenesis of infectious rhinitis is not clear.
  • (8) The present results provide no evidence for a clear morphological substrate for electrotonic transmission in the somatic efferent portion of the primate oculomotor nucleus.
  • (9) But the sports minister has been clear that too many sports bodies are currently not delivering in bringing new people from all backgrounds to their sport.
  • (10) Spermine clearly activated 45Ca uptake by coupled mitochondria, but had no effect on Ca2+ egress from mitochondria previously loaded with 45Ca.
  • (11) Anaerobes, in particular Bacteroides spp., are the predominant bacteria present in mixed intra-abdominal infections, yet their critical importance in the pathogenicity of these infections is not clearly defined.
  • (12) In the German Democratic Republic, patients with scleroderma and history of long term silica exposure are recognized as patients with occupational disease even though pneumoconiosis is not clearly demonstrated on X-ray film.
  • (13) But it will be a subtle difference, because it's already abundantly clear there's no danger of the war being suddenly forgotten, or made to seem irrelevant to our sense of what Europe and the world has to avoid repeating.
  • (14) However in the deciduous teeth from which the successional tooth germs were removed, the processes of tooth resorption was very different in individuals, the difference between tooth resorption in normal occlusal force and in decreased occlusal force was not clear.
  • (15) The trophozoites and pseudocysts could be clearly demonstrated by immunohistochemistry.
  • (16) There is precedent in Islamic law for saving the life of the mother where there is a clear choice of allowing either the fetus or the mother to survive.
  • (17) The results clearly show that the acute hyperthermia of unrestrained rats induced by either peripheral or central injections of morphine is not caused by activation of the pituitary-adrenal axis.
  • (18) A full-scale war is unlikely but there is clear concern in Seoul about the more realistic threat of a small-scale attack on the South Korean military or a group of islands near the countries' disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea.
  • (19) The pathogenicity of Mycoplasma pneumoniae in atypical pneumonias can be considered confirmed according to the availabile literature; its importance for other inflammatory diseases of the respiratory tract, particularly for chronic bronchitis, is not yet sufficiently clear.
  • (20) It is especially efficacious in evaluating patients with cystic lesions, especially those with complex cysts not clearly of water density.

Obscure


Definition:

  • (superl.) Covered over, shaded, or darkened; destitute of light; imperfectly illuminated; dusky; dim.
  • (superl.) Of or pertaining to darkness or night; inconspicuous to the sight; indistinctly seen; hidden; retired; remote from observation; unnoticed.
  • (superl.) Not noticeable; humble; mean.
  • (superl.) Not easily understood; not clear or legible; abstruse or blind; as, an obscure passage or inscription.
  • (superl.) Not clear, full, or distinct; clouded; imperfect; as, an obscure view of remote objects.
  • (a.) To render obscure; to darken; to make dim; to keep in the dark; to hide; to make less visible, intelligible, legible, glorious, beautiful, or illustrious.
  • (v. i.) To conceal one's self; to hide; to keep dark.
  • (n.) Obscurity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This diagnosis was obscured by the absence of cutaneous, oropharyngeal, and respiratory involvement.
  • (2) The mechanism of ACTH action on brain catecholamine metabolism is still obscure, however, an increased release of the NA to ACTH peptides is very likely in the light of the present observations.
  • (3) However, peptide bonds between 193 and 194, and 194 and 195 were cleaved in the presence of mAb 1C3 as easily as in the presence of mAb 31A4, suggesting that the region of residues 200 to 202 was obscured by, or within the antibody binding site, but that the region of residues 193 to 195 was not.
  • (4) The physician's approach to the differential diagnosis of obscure, atypical pneumonias has changed.
  • (5) The thigh and hip manifestations can obscure the primary intra-abdominal process either due to the obvious emphysema or to the obtunded abdominal signs secondary to associated neuropathy.
  • (6) While tonic pupil and reduced sweating can be attributed to the affection of postganglionic cholinergic parasympathetic and sympathetic fibres projecting to the iris and sweat glands, respectively, the pathogenesis of diminished or lost tendon jerks remains obscure.
  • (7) It is found that generic averages obscure some rather substantial differences at the species level for both Cercopithecus and Cercocebus.
  • (8) Although the pathophysiology of the pancreatic injury is obscure, the lack of other etiological factors and temporal association of the pancreatitis with acetaminophen-induced hepatic and renal toxicity suggest a causal relationship.
  • (9) Because reticulocytes contain a pool of uncombined alpha chains which might have obscured the demonstration of an alpha chain-dependent mechanism for beta-chain synthesis, subsequent studies were done with bone marrow cells.
  • (10) However, the mechanism by which Ag II is able to modulate anterior pituitary secretion still remains obscure.
  • (11) Other causes were 20 (13%) with cerebrovascular diseases, 30 (20%) hepatic failure and 11 (8%) were of miscellaneous and obscure causes.
  • (12) In such a case with a large hematoma, the presence of a tumor may be obscured on CT scan and angiography.
  • (13) However, the difficulty still remains that the latter may be obscured by differences not related to thermostability etc.
  • (14) The activating mechanism of the condition still remains obscure.
  • (15) Its language is “archaic and obscure”, the commission says.
  • (16) Clofibrate, an antilipidemic drug that acts by a still obscure mechanism, is known to specifically increase up to 30-fold the activity of the hepatic cytochrome P-450 isozyme that omega-hydroxlates lauric acid.
  • (17) On the electron microscopy, the sarcomere was shortened and Z-line was partly obscure.
  • (18) Photographs of 82 boys from the Harpenden Growth Study were measured at ages 5 to 18 years, in an order that obscured which photographs were of the same boy at different ages.
  • (19) Although the K+ concentration of the contents of the GI tract as well as the K+ transport by the portal vein were increased, the source of the excess K+ remains obscure.
  • (20) The effects of long-term exposure of humans to formaldehyde, however, are more obscure.