obnubilations

Noun

obnubilation (countable and uncountable, plural obnubilations)

1. The action of darkening or fact of being darkened, as with a cloud; obscuration.
   • 1610, John Healey (tr.), Sᵗ. Auguſtine, of the Citie of God: with the learned Comments of Io. Lod. Vives, bk 3, ch. 15, pp. 127–8, note e
2. Obscuration or clouding of the mind or faculties.
   • 1753 Dec. 17th, John Rutty, A Spiritual Diary and Soliloquies in The Life of Samuel Johnſon, LL.D. (1791), aut. James Boswell, vol. II, “1777. Ætat. 68.”, p. 155
3. (literally, rare) A veiling with or concealment in clouds.
   • Homer, the father of the Poets, by these obnubilations, frequently rescues his heroes from the most imminent danger. Thus, in the third book of The Iliad, when Paris, defeated by Menelaus, is on the point of losing his life, Venus snatches him away in a fog: — // “Then, as once more he lifts the...1814 Jan. 15th, “Foggiana” in The Spirit of the Public Journals for 1814 (1815), p. 23
4. Something that obscures or causes confoundment; an obfuscation.
   • 1999, Balachandra Rajan, Under Western Eyes: India from Milton to Macaulay, Afterword, p. 206