obscurum per obscurius
obscurum per obscurius phrase: synonym of ignotum per ignotius (“explaining an obscure subject by resort to one even more obscure”).
Phrase
obscurum per obscurius
- Synonym of ignotum per ignotius (“explaining an obscure subject by resort to one even more obscure”).
- We have no doubt—in spite of those rumours to the contrary which took so preposterous a shape in the table-talk of Lord Byron—that Miss More’s part in the transaction was blameless; but she certainly owes little to the dull slipslop with which Mr. Roberts has contrived to overlay—obscurum per...1834, “Review of Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More”, in The Quarterly Review, volume 52, page 423
- Ivy has been compared to Latin ibex ‘wild goat’ (that is ‘climber’), but, unfortunately, the origin of ibex is obscure […] and, according to the golden rule of etymology, one should never explain obscurum per obscurius.2002, Anatoly Liberman, “Origin unknown”, in Donka Minkova, Robert Stockwell, editors, Studies in the History of the English Language: A Millennial Perspective, →ISBN, page 119
- Synonyms:
- ignotum per ignotius
Synonyms of obscurum per obscurius
Origin of obscurum per obscurius
From Latin obscūrum per obscūrius, “[to explain] the obscure by the more obscure”.
Questions about obscurum per obscurius
- What does obscurum per obscurius mean?
- Obscurum per obscurius means synonym of ignotum per ignotius (“explaining an obscure subject by resort to one even more obscure”).
- What part of speech is obscurum per obscurius?
- Obscurum per obscurius is a phrase.
Words near obscurum per obscurius in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: obscurum per obscurius (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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