Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use arcane in a sentence

26 example sentences · adjective

Arcane means understood by only a few. Example: “The professor’s lecture was full of arcane references.”

Examples of arcane by meaning

adjectiveUnderstood by only a few.

  • The professor’s lecture was full of arcane references.
  • The manuscript contained arcane symbols no one could decipher.
  • He had an arcane knowledge of ancient rituals.

adjectiveRequiring secret or mysterious knowledge to understand.

  • A “signature” was placed on all things by God to indicate their affinities — but it was hidden, hence the search for arcane knowledge.1997: Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault, page 67, The Renaissance Episteme (Totem Books, Icon Books; →ISBN)

adjectiveExtremely old (e.g. interpretation or knowledge), and possibly irrelevant.

  • an arcane law

More sentences with arcane

  • They salted the document with arcane language.From the entry salt
  • Lacking other options, you give yourself a celebratory low-five for becoming a master of the arcane arts.2022, Kazerad, Katia: Embrace elitism, in: Prequel -or- Making a Cat Cry: The Adventure (webcomic), August 20 2022. From the entry low five
  • These are as enjoyable examples as any of the eye-wateringly arcane "advanced cryptic."2014 July 10, Alan Connor, The Crossword Century: 100 Years of Witty Wordplay, Ingenious Puzzles, and Linguistic Mischief, Penguin, →ISBN. From the entry advanced cryptic
  • Pretty arcane stuff - a mixture of green tea and miso-shiru.2008, David R. Hall, Steven A. Hall, Kokoro, page 116. From the entry misoshiru
  • Demoscene is an extremely arcane subculture characterized by endlessly clashing perspectives, trends, and technological innovations.2005, Chris Gehman, Steve Reinke, The sharpest point: animation at the end of cinema. From the entry demoscene
  • Throughout the work, arcane diction such as "dimmen," "strangury," "collapsion," "scrute" abounds.2003, Alan Singer, Aesthetic Reason: Artworks and the Deliberative Ethos, University Park, P.A.: The Pennsylvania State University Press…. From the entry pseudoneologism
  • To answer that, we need to dive forehead first into everybody’s favorite part of any analysis: arcane occupation definitions!2025 March 14, Andrew Van Dam, “Department of Data: More than a quarter of computer-programming jobs just vanished. What happened?…. From the entry developer
  • He mentioned an arcane superancient scripture preserved in central Asia.2016, Robert Ellwood, Harry Partin, Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 28. From the entry superancient
  • Ichi will not live by arcane rules of nonengagement.2009 July 26, Matt Bai, “The Other 0.1%”, in New York Times. From the entry nonengagement
  • In a magocracy, arcane spellcasters usually have the greatest rights and freedoms, and nonspellcasters are looked down upon.2000, Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams, Dungeon Master's Guide: Core Rulebook II, page 156. From the entry magocracy
  • Until they do, the only recourse is the arcane art of ampelography, in which the vines are identified by physical appearance.1993 October 17, Arthur Lubow, “What's Killing the Grapevines of Napa?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry ampelography
  • Vraiment, and styled the arcane spirit of We Who Have Gone Before as a slavering goat-creature with an enormous throbbing wong?1957, Guy Bolton, Child of Fortune: A Play in Three Acts. Adoped from "Wings of the Dove", Norman Spinrad, page 177. From the entry wong
  • This is an arcane, esoteric universe where players must work together on discord channels and message boards to figure out the best courses of action.2022 March 8, Keith Stuart, “Pushing Buttons: Get lost in Elden Ring’s maddening, engaging world”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry metagame
  • Hardware or software, if there was one thing Morton did astoundingly well, it was concocting sock-knocking techno gizmo solutions to the most arcane problems.2009, Frank Tinsman, Chaos and Rage, page 98. From the entry sock-knocking
  • Font and computer-imaging technologies are arcane, and experts at the conference said that for the average user, a choice is often synonymous with confusion.1990 March 11, Peter H. Lewis, “The Executive Computer; The Font Wars: New Weapons Are Rolled Out”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry programming language
  • Analyses that used to exist only in arcane feminist journals are now common among right wingers and are being institutionalized as law and public policy.1984 December 22, Gayle Rubin, “Censored: Anti-Porn Laws And Women's Liberation”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 23, page 8. From the entry right-winger
  • With cameras rolling, the fresh-faced Democrat mainlined a takeout container as he explained in simple terms how the city’s arcane permitting process was squeezing vendors and driving “halalflation.”2025 July 1, Nicholas Fandos, Benjamin Oreskes, Emma G Fitzsimmons, Jeffery C Mays, “How Zohran Mamdani Stunned New York and Won the…. From the entry halalflation
  • For example, to insist on the inclusion of female match racing in Ynglings amounts to a foolish fixation on an arcane and visually unexciting aspect of the sport.2009, Garry Hoyt, Go for the Green: The New Case for Sail and Solar Power, page 35. From the entry yngling
  • Thus, armed with this, the arcane knowledge of a thousand students, Mr Townshend would, throughout his stay, go ahead and order bowlfuls of Kellogg’s on room service.2007, Jon Holmes, “The Best to You Each Morning”, in Rock Star Babylon: Legendary Tales of Debauchery, Excess and Bad Behaviour, London…. From the entry cornflakey
  • The true mages, lifelong students of the arcane arts, practiced their trade with due respect for the magic, ever wary of the potential consequences of their spellcastings.1988, R[obert] A[nthony] Salvatore, “The Gathering Gloom”, in The Crystal Shard (The Icewind Dale Trilogy; 1), Lake Geneva, Wis.: TSR…. From the entry spellcasting
  • I would gladly watch any “Schitt’s Creek” episode again just to dip into O’Hara’s spectacular, peculiar pronunciation and the way Moira would drop arcane words into just about any conversation.2020 August 19, Glenn Whipp, “Emmys 2020 comedy predictions: Expect ‘Schitt’s Creek’ to win big”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles…. From the entry frippet

Meaning of arcane

  1. adjective Understood by only a few.
  2. adjective Obscure, mysterious.
  3. adjective Requiring secret or mysterious knowledge to understand.

Full definition of arcane

Questions about arcane in a sentence

How do you use arcane in a sentence?
Arcane is used as an adjective. For example: “The professor’s lecture was full of arcane references.”
What is a short sentence with arcane?
“an arcane law”
What does arcane mean?
Arcane means understood by only a few.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arcane (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use arcane in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/arcane. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.