# occult

Pronunciation: US say "uh-KULT" /əˈkʌlt/; UK say "OK-ult" /ˈɒk.ʌlt/; AUS

## Noun

1. Supernatural affairs, taken together as a whole.
   - Simple: Things that are supernatural, beyond the normal world.
   - _The novel's villain dabbles in the occult and holds séances in his attic._
   - _After the strange lights over the lake, interest in the occult swept through the town._

## Adjective

2. Relating to supernatural matters such as mysticism, magic, or astrology.
   - Simple: About magic, star signs, and other powers beyond the natural world.
   - _Many Renaissance scholars studied alchemy and other occult sciences alongside medicine._
   - _She collects rare occult books on tarot and astrology._
3. Hidden or undetected, and so not known or noticed in the ordinary way.
   - Simple: Hidden, and not yet found or noticed.
   - _In some patients, an occult cancer is discovered only after it has spread._
   - _The study screened young athletes for occult heart disease._
4. Not visible to the eye, but detectable by chemical testing.
   - Simple: Too small to see, but a chemical test can find it.
   - _A yearly stool test can catch occult bleeding before any symptoms appear._
   - _The lab found occult blood in the sample, so the doctor ordered more tests._
5. Esoteric: known or understood by only a few people, and obscure to everyone else.
   - Simple: Hard to understand, or known only to a few people.
   - _The contract was full of occult legal terms that only a specialist could follow._
   - _To outsiders, the scoring rules of the tournament seemed almost occult._

## Verb

Pronunciation: say "uh-KULT" /əˈkʌlt/

6. To cover or hide something from view, as when one celestial body passes in front of another.
   - Simple: To block something in the sky from view by moving in front of it.
   - _Tonight the moon will occult a bright star near the eastern horizon._
   - _Astronomers timed how long the asteroid occulted the distant star to work out its size._

## Verb

Pronunciation: say "uh-KULT" /əˈkʌlt/

7. To conceal or disguise something, or to make it obscure. *(rare)*
   - Simple: To hide something, or to make it hard to see or understand.
   - _The spokesman's careful phrasing occulted the real reason for the delay._
   - _Long footnotes can occult the main argument of an otherwise clear book._

## Origin

Borrowed from Latin occultus (“hidden, secret”).

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/occult (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).