Cryptic means deliberately hard to understand. A cryptic remark, a cryptic message, cryptic crossword.
The deliberateness is what separates it from merely unclear. A cryptic crossword clue contains a definition and a wordplay route to the same answer, which is why solving one feels like a trick being explained. In biology, cryptic colouring is camouflage — hiding rather than confusing. Note crypt, cryptography, encrypt; and that the Greek behind it means simply hidden.
1adjectivecrypticDeliberately hard to understand.
“He left a cryptic message saying only, 'Look under the blue stone.'”
cryptic is a quality of concealment.
Greek kryptikos comes from kryptos, hidden, from kryptein, to hide. Crypt, cryptography and apocrypha come from the same hiding.
Ancient Greek
κρυπτικός
Latin
crypticus
English, today
cryptic
Built from
From Latin crypticus, from Ancient Greek κρυπτικός, from κρυπτός (“hidden”), from κρύπτω (“to hide”). a doublet of kryptic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA