Mysterious

//mɪˈstɪə̯.ɹi.əs// adj

adj ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of unknown origin.

    "He received a mysterious phone call this morning."

  2. 2
    Having unknown qualities.

    "Our boss is a mysterious man who hardly ever meets with us."

  3. 3
    Difficult to understand.

    "Why he left without saying goodbye is quite mysterious."

  4. 4
    Deliberately evasive or enigmatic.

    "Stop being mysterious and just tell me what you want."

Adjective
  1. 1
    having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding wordnet
  2. 2
    of an obscure nature wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
esotericinscrutableabstruseenigmaticinenubilableuncertain

Example

More examples

"I always liked mysterious characters more."

Etymology

From Middle English *misterius (implied in misteriusly), probably partly from Middle French mystérieux and partly from Latin mystērium + -ous. By surface analysis, mystery + -ous.

Related phrases

God works in mysterious waysthe Lord works in mysterious ways

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.