obnubilation

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)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”

   “Let then others glory in their triumphs, and trophies, in their obnubilation of bodies coruscant, that they have brought fear upon Champions, forced contributions from the Herculesses of manhood.”

   “Fog and sunshine, obnubilation and light.”

   “Let no dark // Obnubilations of salesmen dim the day // Lit by your contract, which is clear, as though it were // A lamp.”

   “In 1931 these and other obnubilations…were over the horizon and he gave a set of proofs of The Colonel’s Daughter to Douglas.”

2. (countable, uncountable)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”

   “Dimness or obnubilation of sight.”

   “At the instant of the accident the patient lost consciousness for several hours, and afterwards lay for several days in a state of torpor or obnubilation.”

   “Obnubilaʹtion…A dazzling of the eyes without giddiness, so that objects seem to be seen through a cloud, as in threatened fainting.”

   “Obnubilations, comas and stupors, each with its clinical and electroencephalographic characteristics.”

3. (countable, literally, rare, uncountable)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 deadly dart, // In thirst of vengeance, at his rival’s heart, // The Queen of Love her fav’rite champion shrouds // (For Gods can all things) in a veil of clouds.””

4. (countable, uncountable)Something that obscures or causes confoundment; an obfuscation.

   “1999, Balachandra Rajan, Under Western Eyes: India from Milton to Macaulay, Afterword, p. 206”

   “The problem of error is crucial, for as Watt interrogates the foundations of rational inquiry, the distinctions between intended errors, authorial errors, mistakes introduced by publishers, changes of intention and other obnubilations loom all the larger.”

   “Philosophy was wreathed in Fichtean obnubilations.”