English

Noun

obnubilation ‎(countable and uncountable, plural obnubilations)

1. The action of darkening or fact of being darkened as with a cloud; obscuration.
   • 1610, John Healey (translator), Juan Luis Vives (author of commentary), S^t. Auguſtine, of the Citie of God: with the learned Comments of Io. Lod. Vives (first edition), book 3, chapter 15: “Of the liues and deaths of the Romaine Kings”, pages 127–128, note e:

     [T]he partly meeting of the Sun and Moone depriues vs of the Suns light, and this is the Eclypſe of the Sun but the ſhade of the earth falling from yͤ ſuns place lineally vpon the moone, makes the moones eclipſe. So that neither can the Sunne bee Eclipſed but in the Moones change, and partile coniunction with him; neither can the Moone be eclipſed but at her ful, and in her fartheſt poſture from the ſunne: then is ſhe proſtitute to obnubilation.‎

   • 1653, Edward Waterhouse, An humble apologie for learning and learned men, page 175:

     Let then others glory in their triumphs, and trophies, in their obnubilation of bodies coruscant, that they have brought fear upon Champions, forced contributions from the Herculesses of manhood; let them boast, their wills are laws, their names are renowned, and their sons shall be made Princes in all Lands, yet in spight of them, and their wrath, we of the bookish Tribe shall live to laugh their folly to scorn, who think any thing praise worthy which is not victorious and generous, not moderate and diffusively good: for as Saint Augustine sayes, Vertue must not follow glory, but glory vertue, as the more worthy; and therefore hath God given man wisdom, that by it he may guard himselfe against those harms which assault his frailty.‎

   • 1819, Felix MacDonogh, The Hermit in London, London: Henry Colburn, volume II, page 133:

     Fog and sunshine, obnubilation and light.‎

2. (medicine) The clouding of consciousness.

Related terms

• obnubilate
• obnubilated ‎(adjective)
• obnubilous

Translations

References

• Webster's 1828 sense
• “Obnubilation” in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (1st edition), volume VII (O, P; 1909), § i (O, ed. James Augustus Henry Murray), page 25/3