Adjacent Words

Occult definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

OCCULT', a. [L. occultus, occulo; ob and celo, to conceal.]
Hidden from the eye or understanding; invisible; secret; unknown; undiscovered; undetected; as the occult qualities of matter.
The occult sciences are magic, necromancy, etc.
Occult lines, in geometry, are such as are drawn with the compasses or a pencil, and are scarcely visible.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: hidden and difficult to see; "an occult fracture"; "occult blood in the stool"
2: having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding; "mysterious symbols"; "the mystical style of Blake"; "occult lore"; "the secret learning of the ancients" [syn: mysterious, mystic, mystical, occult, secret, orphic] n
1: supernatural forces and events and beings collectively; "She doesn't believe in the supernatural" [syn: supernatural, occult]
2: supernatural practices and techniques; "he is a student of the occult" [syn: occult, occult arts] v
1: cause an eclipse of (a celestial body) by intervention; "The Sun eclipses the moon today"; "Planets and stars often are occulted by other celestial bodies" [syn: eclipse, occult]
2: become concealed or hidden from view or have its light extinguished; "The beam of light occults every so often"
3: hide from view; "The lids were occulting her eyes"

Merriam Webster's

I. transitive verb Etymology: Latin occultare, frequentative of occulere Date: 1500 to shut off from view or exposure ; cover, eclipse • occulter noun II. adjective Etymology: Latin occultus, from past participle of occulere to cover up, from ob- in the way + -culere (akin to celare to conceal) — more at ob-, hell Date: 1533 1. not revealed ; secret 2. not easily apprehended or understood ; abstruse, mysterious 3. hidden from view ; concealed 4. of or relating to the occult 5. not manifest or detectable by clinical methods alone <occult carcinoma>; also not present in macroscopic amounts <occult blood in a stool> • occultly adverb III. noun Date: 1923 matters regarded as involving the action or influence of supernatural or supernormal powers or some secret knowledge of them — used with the

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & v. --adj. 1 involving the supernatural; mystical, magical. 2 kept secret; esoteric. 3 recondite, mysterious; beyond the range of ordinary knowledge. 4 Med. not obvious on inspection. --v.tr. Astron. (of a concealing body much greater in size than the concealed body) hide from view by passing in front; conceal by being in front. Phrases and idioms: the occult occult phenomena generally. occulting light a lighthouse light that is cut off at regular intervals. Derivatives: occultation n. occultism n. occultist n. occultly adv. occultness n. Etymology: L occulere occult- (as OB-, celare hide)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Occult Oc*cult", a. [L. occultus, p. p. of occulere to cover up, hide; ob (see Ob-) + a root prob.akin to E. hell: cf. F. occulte.] Hidden from the eye or the understanding; inviable; secret; concealed; unknown. It is of an occult kind, and is so insensible in its advances as to escape observation. --I. Taylor. Occult line (Geom.), a line drawn as a part of the construction of a figure or problem, but not to appear in the finished plan. Occult qualities, those qualities whose effects only were observed, but the nature and relations of whose productive agencies were undetermined; -- so called by the schoolmen. Occult sciences, those sciences of the Middle Ages which related to the supposed action or influence of occult qualities, or supernatural powers, as alchemy, magic, necromancy, and astrology.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Occult Oc*cult", v. t. To eclipse; to hide from sight.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

The occult is the knowledge and study of supernatural or magical forces. ...sinister experiments with the occult. N-SING: the N • Occult is also an adjective. ...organisations which campaign against paganism and occult practice. ADJ: ADJ n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Hidden, secret, unrevealed, invisible, unknown, undiscovered, undetected, mysterious, mystic, mystical, recondite, cabalistic, latent, abstruse, veiled, shrouded.

Moby Thesaurus

abstract, abstruse, airy, anagogic, apply to, arcana, arcane, arcanum, asomatous, astral, baffling, becloud, beclouded, bedarken, bedim, befog, begloom, between the lines, black, black magic, black out, blacken, blanket, blind, block, block the light, blot out, bodiless, bodilessness, brown, buried, bury, cabala, cabalic, cabalism, cabalistic, cabbala, cabbalism, cabbalistic, cache, camouflage, canopy, cast a shadow, censored, classified, classified information, cloak, close, closed, clothe, cloud, cloud over, clouded, conceal, concealed, confidence, confidential communication, cope, cover, cover up, covered, covert, cowl, dark, darken, darken over, decarnate, decarnated, deep, delitescent, dim, dim out, discarnate, disembodied, disguise, dissemble, distract attention from, ditch, dormant, eclipse, eclipsed, eerie, eeriness, elfdom, encloud, encompass with shadow, enigma, enigmatic, ensconce, enshroud, envelop, esoteric, esoterica, ethereal, extramundane, extraterrestrial, faerie, fey, film, ghostliness, ghostly, gloom, gloss over, guarded secret, heavy, hermetic, hermetics, hibernating, hid, hidden, hide, hood, hush-hush, hypernormal, hyperphysical, immaterial, immateriality, immaterialness, impalpability, impalpable, impenetrable, imponderability, imponderable, in a cloud, in a fog, in eclipse, in purdah, in the wings, incommunicado, incomprehensible, incorporate, incorporeal, incorporeality, incorporeity, indecipherable, inexplicable, inextension, inscrutable, insubstantial, intangibility, intangible, keep under cover, latent, lay on, lay over, lurking, magical, mantle, mask, metaphysic, miraculousness, muffle, muffled, murk, mysterious, mysteriousness, mystery, mystery of mysteries, mystic, mystical, mystifying, nonexteriority, nonmaterial, nonphysical, numinous, numinousness, obduce, obfuscate, obfuscated, obnubilate, obscure, obscured, obumbrate, occult phenomena, occultate, occultism, otherworldliness, otherworldly, overcast, overcloud, overlay, overshadow, overspread, perplexing, personal matter, phantom, possible, potential, preterhuman, preternatural, preternaturalism, preternormal, pretersensual, private, private matter, privileged communication, privity, privy, profound, profound secret, psychic, psychical research, psychicism, psychics, psychism, put on, puzzling, recondite, restricted, restricted information, screen, scum, sealed book, secluded, secluse, secret, secrete, sequestered, shade, shadow, shadowiness, shadowy, shield, shroud, shrouded, sleeping, slur over, smothered, somber, sorcery, spirit world, spiritual, spirituality, spirituousness, spread over, stash, stifled, submerged, superhuman, superhumanity, superimpose, supernatural, supernaturalism, supernaturality, supernaturalness, supernature, supernormal, supernormalness, superphysical, superphysicalness, superpose, supersensible, supersensibleness, supersensual, suppressed, supramundane, supranatural, supranaturalism, supranature, the occult, the supernatural, the supersensible, the unknown, theosophical, theosophist, top secret, transcendental, transcendentalism, transmundane, ulterior, unbreatheable, under an eclipse, under cover, under house arrest, under security, under the surface, under wraps, underground, underlying, undisclosable, undisclosed, undivulgable, undivulged, unearthliness, unearthly, unembodied, unexplainable, unexplained, unextended, unfathomable, unfleshly, unhuman, unknown, unmanifested, unphysical, unrevealable, unrevealed, unspoken, unsubstantial, unsubstantiality, unsubstantialness, untellable, untold, unutterable, unuttered, unwhisperable, unworldliness, unworldly, vague, varnish, veil, veiled, virtual, weird, whitewash, witchcraft, witchery, wrapped in clouds