Opaque
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 An area of darkness; a place or region with no light. obsolete, poetic
"Through this opaque of Nature and of Soul, / This double night, transmit one pitying ray, / To lighten, and to cheer."
- 2 Something which is opaque rather than translucent.
"They can be obtained in various thicknesses and in many colors, including beautiful imitations of pearl, mother-of-pearl, veins and mottles, stratifications, roll stratifications, imitation corals, and all colors of translucents, transparents and opaques, grained ivory, shell (plain and corrugated mottle), onyx, wood effects, plaids, checks, stripes, metallic, bronze pearl plain, bronze pearl with fancy blocks, bronze pearl in veins and stripes, and what is called “essence pearl.”"
- 1 To make, render (more) opaque. transitive
- 1 Neither reflecting nor emitting light.
"We have agreed that heat is energy to begin with. Light is also a form of energy for when absorbed by any opaque substance it turns completely into heat."
- 2 Allowing little light to pass through, not translucent or transparent.
- 3 Unclear, unintelligible, hard to get or explain the meaning of. figuratively
- 4 Obtuse, stupid. figuratively
- 5 Describes a type for which higher-level callers have no knowledge of data values or their representations; all operations are carried out by the type's defined abstract operators.
- 1 not transmitting or reflecting light or radiant energy; impenetrable to sight wordnet
- 2 hard or impossible to understand wordnet
Example
More examples""The day pulls to a close" is a barbarism, possibly entirely opaque if you fail to recognize it as a translation of "The day draws to a close.""
Etymology
From Middle English opake, from Latin opacus (“shaded, shady, dark”) (of unknown origin), later reinforced from Middle French opaque. Doublet of ubac.
Related phrases
More for "opaque"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.