Opaque

How to spell opaque

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce opaque

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does opaque mean?

1. adjectiveNot able to be seen through; not letting light pass.
2. adjectiveDifficult to understand; deliberately unclear.

Opaque in a sentence

• The bathroom window uses opaque glass for privacy.

• The contract was so opaque that even the lawyers disagreed on its meaning.

• She chose an opaque shower curtain so the room stayed private.

• His report stayed deliberately opaque about where the money had gone.

Where does opaque come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin opacus, which meant 'shaded', 'shady', or 'dark', the quality of a place sheltered from sunlight by trees or walls. Roman writers used it for cool, dim spots rather than for materials that block light, so the original sense was closer to 'shadowed' than to 'not see-through'. English took the word in the 1400s, partly through the French opaque, and over time it settled on the modern meaning of a material that light cannot pass through. The figurative sense, describing language or reasoning that is hard to understand, grew naturally from the idea of something you cannot see into. The tricky French-style ending is the spelling trap: it is written -que and pronounced like a plain 'k', and the vowel before it is an 'a' (opaque), not the 'e' that the sound might tempt you to write.

How the word is built

• opac- (from Latin opacus: shaded, dark)
• -que (French-influenced spelling of the ending)