MYSTERY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Mystery

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/mˈɪstəri/ Listen

noun

Mystery n. (pl. mysteries)

A profound secret; something wholly unknown, or something kept cautiously concealed, and therefore exciting curiosity or wonder; something which has not been or can not be explained; hence, specifically, that which is beyond human comprehension. "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery." "If God should please to reveal unto us this great mystery of the Trinity, or some other mysteries in our holy religion, we should not be able to understand them, unless he would bestow on us some new faculties of the mind."

A kind of secret religious celebration, to which none were admitted except those who had been initiated by certain preparatory ceremonies; usually plural; as, the Eleusinian mysteries.

pl. The consecrated elements in the eucharist.

Anything artfully made difficult; an enigma.

Mystery n. (pl. mysteries)

A trade; a handicraft; hence, any business with which one is usually occupied. "Fie upon him, he will discredit our mystery." "And that which is the noblest mystery Brings to reproach and common infamy."

A dramatic representation of a Scriptural subject, often some event in the life of Christ; a dramatic composition of this character; as, the Chester Mysteries, consisting of dramas acted by various craft associations in that city in the early part of the 14th century. ""Mystery plays," so called because acted by craftsmen."

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Etymology of 'Mystery'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mystery" Quotes from Famous Books

... tenderly impressed by poor Giustiniani when he arrived at night, travel-stained and drenched with rain, in the first fit of a fever; 'but woman,' said the sagacious narrator, as he received a tumbler of grog from the steward, 'is a mystery'—an opinion I am not ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various

... at that time took their annual flight southward from Michigan, Indiana and other states in that region, and were never seen again. What became of this prodigious cloud of birds still remains a mystery. Knapendyke now advanced the theory that in skirting the Gulf of Mexico on their way to the winter roosts in Central America they were caught by a hurricane and blown out to sea. By various stages the bewildered survivors of the gale made their way down ...

— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... wilt repose thy trust in the Lord Christ, I will strive to show thee two pictures of thy very self—one, to wit, of the natural Adam in Desiderius, and one of the man redeemed by the blood shed for thee. So in some wise shalt thou come to some dim light of this mystery of grace divine. Will that ...

— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... rainbow-tinted sea, A splendor and a mystery, Floods o'er the fields of faded gray: The roads are full of folks in glee, For lo,—to-day is ...

— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke

... when Aunt Maria appeared at the early breakfast with a pompadour. Her thin frizzes were carefully puffed over a mystery which she had purchased the ...

— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

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