mysterious

mysterious, inscrutable, arcane mean beyond one's power to discover, understand, or explain.

Something mysterious excites wonder, curiosity, or surmise yet baffles all attempts to explain it

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extremes in Nature equal ends produce, in Man they join to some mysterious use— Pope

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God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform— Cowper

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brought back a vivid report on remote and mysterious Tibet— W. O. Douglas

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Something inscrutable defies all one's efforts to examine or investigate it and leaves one with a sense of hopelessness or defeat

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great God, thy judgments are inscrutable— Browning

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the plaything of an inscrutable power, called Fortune— Bradley

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The word is often applied to a person whose intentions, motives, or mental processes are so well concealed that they defy interpretation

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many fathers feel that, if they are to maintain their authority, they must be a little distant and inscrutable— Benson

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people who prefer to stand at the bar have, universally, an inscrutable look— Pynchon

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Something arcane is beyond comprehension because known or knowable only to the possessor of the secret (sometimes by implication God, Nature, the Fates, or the authorities). The word may come close to occult in meaning, but it stresses the reservation of what is necessary for comprehension rather than the supranatural or magical character of what is not understood

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by behaving as if he were a trickster, Shaw managed to hide the arcane processes of his imaginative life— Anthony West

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not surprised to find his ways crossed and contested by his wife, who had her own arcane rites such as arranging flowers and cleaning closets— Cheever

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Analogous words: occult, esoteric, *recondite, abstruse: cryptic, enigmatic, ambiguous, equivocal, *obscure: *mystical, mystic, anagogical, cabalistic