obscurantist
1
9.9
- noun
- /əbˈskyo͞orəntəst/
- Formal
:
obscurantista
- Magdeburg, where the printing press had not previously been shackled, became the symbolic place of intellectual self-affirmation against the obscurantist powers of reaction and restoration.
Examples
-
Certainly better than all the dense, obscurantist scribbling you produced during your inner emigration.
Fiction book (1999) -
"That science reaches truth," he says, "only an obscurantist would deny."
Academic text (1993) -
Your obscurantist scribbling is so dense that it's impossible to know what you meant.
Fiction book (1999) -
And he identifies a problem that obscurantist minds keep evading.
Blog text (32) -
The obscurantist language may be explained by an unexpressed fear that the appeals court judges themselves might be accused of racism.
Academic text (2010) -
In turn, they accuse the Islamists of being ancestral, reactionary, and obscurantist.
Academic text (1996) -
On the other hand, critics have questioned its credibility and wondered whether enlightenment is a goal or only a means to confront the obscurantist Islamic tide.
Academic text (1996) -
Whether one regards fundamentalists as faithful Christians or ignorant obscurantists, there is a tendency to think of the movement as an island community that has cut itself off from the modern world, like the old order Amish.
Academic text (1993) -
In 1958, philosophers such as May Brodbeck and Stephen Toulmin dismissed Polanyi as an obscurantist; today we are much closer to accepting his claim that most objective knowledge is personal knowledge.
Academic text (1991) -
The politician was criticized as an obscurantist for hiding crucial details during the debate.
Synonyms
5
3.6
Someone or something that keeps themselves and others out of sight
1
9.9
A person who often avoids telling the truth and gives unclear answers
1
9.5
A person who hides real thoughts or plans by saying something else
1
9.7
A person or tool that makes things hard to understand, often on purpose, for example to hide code
1
4.1
A person or thing that hides something to keep it secret
1
8.0
A person who uses force or authority to stop people, information and actions
A person who stops people from saying or sharing ideas and facts
A person who makes faults or bad news sound better
A person who hides true feelings or plans by saying things they do not mean
How Obstructive
Surface Forms
Morphology
obscurantist = obscurant (transparent) = obscure + ant + ist
Adding the agentive suffix '-ist' to 'obscurant' yields someone who promotes or practices obscurity, a predictable agentive formation.
Etymology
The word obscurantist comes from obscure, an old word meaning 'dark' or 'hidden'. An obscurantist is someone who keeps things 'in the dark' on purpose, so the origin explains why it means a person who hides facts or makes them hard to understand.