Adjacent Words

Cryptic definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CRYPTIC, CRYPTICAL, a. Hidden; secret; occult.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: of an obscure nature; "the new insurance policy is written without cryptic or mysterious terms"; "a deep dark secret"; "the inscrutable workings of Providence"; "in its mysterious past it encompasses all the dim origins of life"- Rachel Carson; "rituals totally mystifying to visitors from other lands" [syn: cryptic, cryptical, deep, inscrutable, mysterious, mystifying]
2: having a secret or hidden meaning; "cabalistic symbols engraved in stone"; "cryptic writings"; "thoroughly sibylline in most of his pronouncements"- John Gunther [syn: cabalistic, kabbalistic, qabalistic, cryptic, cryptical, sibylline]
3: having a puzzling terseness; "a cryptic note"

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Late Latin crypticus, from Greek kryptikos, from kryptos Date: circa 1638 1. secret, occult 2. a. having or seeming to have a hidden or ambiguous meaning ; mysterious <cryptic messages> b. marked by an often perplexing brevity <cryptic marginal notes> 3. serving to conceal <cryptic coloration in animals>; also exhibiting cryptic coloration <cryptic animals> 4. not recognized <a cryptic infection> 5. employing cipher or code Synonyms: see obscure • cryptically adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 a obscure in meaning. b (of a crossword clue etc.) indirect; indicating the solution in a way that is not obvious. c secret, mysterious, enigmatic. 2 Zool. (of coloration etc.) serving for concealment. Derivatives: cryptically adv. Etymology: LL crypticus f. Gk kruptikos (as CRYPTO-)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cryptic Cryp"tic (kr[i^]p"t[i^]k), Cryptical Cryp"tic*al (-t?-kal), a. [L. crypticus, Gr. kryptiko`s, fr. kry`ptein to hide.] Hidden; secret; occult. ``Her [nature's] more cryptic ways of working.'' --Glanvill.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

A cryptic remark or message contains a hidden meaning or is difficult to understand. He has issued a short, cryptic statement denying the spying charges... My father's notes are more cryptic here. ADJ • cryptically 'Not necessarily,' she says cryptically. ADV: ADV with v

Moby Thesaurus

abstruse, arcane, between the lines, cabalistic, cabbalistic, censored, classified, close, closed, concealed, covert, dark, delitescent, dormant, enigmatic, equivocal, esoteric, evasive, hermetic, hibernating, hidden, hush-hush, incomprehensible, inexplicable, inscrutable, latent, lurking, muffled, murky, mysterious, mystic, mystical, mystifying, nebulous, obfuscated, obscure, obscured, occult, opaque, perplexing, possible, potential, puzzling, recondite, restricted, riddling, secret, secretive, sleeping, smothered, sphinxlike, stifled, strange, submerged, suppressed, tenebrous, top secret, ulterior, unbreatheable, unclear, under security, under the surface, under wraps, underlying, undisclosable, undisclosed, undivulgable, undivulged, unfathomable, uninformative, unmanifested, unrevealable, unrevealed, unspoken, untellable, untold, unutterable, unuttered, unwhisperable, vague, veiled, virtual