Obscurantistic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Deliberately making information or ideas vague and hard to grasp
2. Purposely obscuring facts or meaning to prevent clear understanding
3. Acting in a way that clouds or confuses knowledge on purpose

Etymology: Obscurantistic is built from "obscurant," which comes from Latin "obscurare," meaning "to darken," itself from "obscurus," "dark." The "-ant" ending marks a person or thing that does the darkening, and "-istic" turns the "-ist" noun it derives from into an adjective describing a manner or character. The literal sense of darkening was applied figuratively to people who keep knowledge from others, especially those who resist the spread of learning. From that, the adjective came to describe anything deliberately vague or hard to understand, which is the sense here: writing or speech that hides its meaning on purpose.

Synonyms: obscurantist, antiquarian

Antonyms: enlightened