obscurant means acting or tending to confound, obfuscate, or obscure. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 83 out of 100.
obscurant is pronounced /ɒbˈskjʊəɹənt/.
Why “obscurant” is a great word
OBSCURANT — [Adjective] Acting or tending to deliberately confound, obfuscate, or obscure meaning, knowledge, or understanding. From German Obskurant and French obscurant, from classical Latin obscūrant-, stem of obscūrāns, present participle of obscūrāre ("to obscure"), from obscūrus ("dark"). First attested in English circa 1793–1799. Unlike "obscure" (which describes a passive state of being unclear) or "esoteric" (which implies a selective, specialized audience), "obscurant" carries the active malice of a decision: the bureaucrat's labyrinthine memo designed to prevent action, the scholar's fog of convoluted prose, and the deliberate erasure of inconvenient history from a textbook. Its aim is not exclusion but occlusion—a quiet violence against understanding, the deliberate act of turning out the light.
Etymology
Entering English circa 1793–1799: From German Obskurant and French obscurant, from classical Latin obscūrant-, stem of obscūrāns, present participle of obscūrāre (“to obscure”), from obscūrus (“dark”).
adj
- Acting or tending to confound, obfuscate, or obscure.
- Typical of or pertaining to obscurants; obscurantic; obscurantistic.
noun
- One who acts to confound or obfuscate; an obscurantist.
- A person who seeks to prevent or hinder enquiry and the advancement of knowledge or wisdom; an agent of endarkenment.
- An opposer of lucidity and transparency in the political and intellectual spheres.