mysterious

adj
/mɪˈstɪə̯.ɹi.əs/UK/mɪˈstɪɹi.əs/US

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.

  1. derived from mystérieux
  2. inherited from *misterius

Definitions

  1. Of unknown origin.

    • He received a mysterious phone call this morning.
  2. Having unknown qualities.

    • Our boss is a mysterious man who hardly ever meets with us.
    • God moves in a myſterious way, / His wonders to perform; / He plants his footſteps in the ſea, / And rides upon the ſtorm.
  3. Difficult to understand.

    • Why he left without saying goodbye is quite mysterious.
    • Buttressed by clothes, walls and objects, there was the bourgeois family, the most mysterious institution of the age.
  4. + 1 more definition
    1. Deliberately evasive or enigmatic.

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

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at mysterious. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01mysterious02understand03belief04reality05entity06organised07organized08efficient09initiating10initiate

A definitional loop anchored at mysterious. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

10 hops · closes at mysterious

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA