arcane

adjective

ar·​cane är-ˈkān 

: known or knowable only to a few people : secret

arcane rites

an arcane ritual

broadly : mysterious, obscure

arcane explanations

arcane technical details

Synonyms of arcane

• esoteric
• profound

Examples of arcane in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Many are rejected without consideration for the content of their complaint, for arcane reasons such as including too many pages or not filing enough copies. —Christie Thompson, NPR, 17 June 2026

And since each state tax operates under its own often arcane rules, those costs can come as an unpleasant surprise. —Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes.com, 16 May 2026

Farley pointed out to Fortune that Ford’s ongoing restructuring involves launching an energy business and converting several factories in that direction, with workers now needing to learn arcane expertise such as lithium iron phosphate chemistry. —Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 13 May 2026

In the summer of 2023, at the end of his third year of graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ilango was growing increasingly interested in an arcane subfield of complexity theory called proof complexity. —Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 11 May 2026

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Latin arcānus "secret, private, intimate," from arca "chest, coffer, box" + -ānus -an entry 2 — more at ark

First Known Use

1547, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for arcane

• abstain
• airplane
• alkane
• arraign
• attain
• backplane
• betaine
• biplane
• blockchain
• butane
• campaign
• cetane