Kryptic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Deliberately puzzling or hard to understand, as if intentionally concealed or encoded
2. Mysterious and unclear in significance, leaving the reader or observer perplexed about the intended meaning
3. Obscure or cryptic in character, requiring effort or special knowledge to decipher or comprehend

Etymology: "Kryptic" is the older, more Greek-looking sibling of "cryptic," and the two entered English along different routes. Both descend from Ancient Greek "kruptikós," meaning "obscuring" or "concealing," which comes from "kruptein," "to hide." The Greek adjective passed into Latin as "crypticus" and from there into the vocabulary of English and other European languages, where it was used to describe things that were hidden or secret. The more familiar "cryptic" carries the sense of puzzling, deliberately ambiguous language, as in a crossword clue or a riddling remark. "Kryptic" is a doublet of that word: the same Greek ancestor reached English by a separate path, leaving a spelling with a K that looks closer to the original. In everyday use it is far less common, and it is mainly found in older writing or in deliberately antiquated or stylised prose, where the K gives the word an air of an earlier, more learned English.