Meaning & use
mysterious
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Strange and hard to explain or understand, so that it arouses curiosity.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after be: a mysterious noise, or The cause is mysterious.
Patterns
- mysterious to someone
- a mysterious disappearance
A mysterious light appeared over the hills last night.
The cause of the fire remains mysterious.
Why the old clock stopped is mysterious to everyone in the family.
adjectivecomparable
Deliberately keeping secrets or hiding details, so that others cannot tell what you are thinking or doing.
Grammar: Describes a person's manner: She was mysterious about her plans.
Patterns
- mysterious about something
He was mysterious about where he spent his weekends.
The new neighbor is a quiet, mysterious woman who never greets anyone.
She gave a mysterious smile and refused to say more.
Word forms
| comparative | more mysterious |
|---|---|
| superlative | most mysterious |
Common combinations
- mysterious circumstances
- The painting vanished in mysterious circumstances.
- mysterious stranger
- A mysterious stranger left a note at the door.
- mysterious disappearance
- The mysterious disappearance of the ship puzzled sailors for years.
- strangely mysterious
- The forest felt strangely mysterious at dusk.
- mysterious illness
- A mysterious illness spread through the village.
- mysterious ways
- Fate works in mysterious ways.
Synonyms and how they differ
- puzzling
- Puzzling stresses the difficulty of working something out, while mysterious adds a sense of strangeness and intrigue.
- enigmatic
- Enigmatic is more formal and usually describes a person or expression that is hard to read.
- secretive
- Secretive means purposely hiding information, whereas mysterious can describe something unexplained that nobody is hiding.
- unexplained
- Unexplained simply says no explanation has been given, without the sense of wonder in mysterious.
Opposites
Word family
- mystery noun
- something that cannot be explained, or a story about a puzzling event
- mysteriously adverb
- in a way that cannot be explained
- mysteriousness noun
- the quality of being hard to explain
- mystify verb
- to confuse someone completely
Commonly confused: mysterious or mystical? mysterious or misty?
mysterious vs mystical
Mystical relates to spiritual or religious experience beyond ordinary understanding, while mysterious simply means hard to explain.
mysterious vs misty
Misty means full of mist or hazy; mysterious means puzzling.
Practice
The neighbors could not work out who was leaving flowers at the gate every Friday, and the whole affair stayed ______.
Choose one answer.
Mysterious fits something that cannot be explained. Obvious, familiar and routine all suggest it was easy to understand, which contradicts the puzzle.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “mysterious”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.