If you were in the wrong place for watching a full moon or an eclipse it could be due to “obnubilation.” The sky can be obnubilated any time, of course, not just when there’s an eclipse. Skies have been potentially obnubilated since the late 1500s when the word “obnubilate” appeared in English. It’s derived from Latin, and made up of “nubilare” (to become cloudy) and “ob-“ (a prefix meaning “toward”).
“Ob-“ didn’t make its first appearance in obnubilate, of course, and it’s been much more generally popular that that particular word. Practically everything has been more popular than “obnubilate” — you could say usage of that word has been pretty clouded. But that’s not the case with “ob-.” It originally meant “toward” or “to,” it acquired another meaning that’s exactly the opposite: “against”. It’s used that way in words such as “objection” and the slightly-different-form word I just used: “opposite”. And in some other words it also seems to mean “before” (as in obstetric), “away from” (obsolete) and “because of” (obsecrate). As for “oblong,” the “ob-“ there seems to simply mean “more so”.
But let’s not obnubilate the issue by getting all querimonious with our objections. If you must issue complaints, please limit them to your zeticula or something similar!
