Origin Stories: Adumbrate
“Origin story” is an expression for a superhero’s backstory — for instance, Superman was born on Krypton just before it was destroyed. Many words also have fascinating origin stories. While English comes largely from Latin (and from Greek, and from Latin through French and Spanish, with some Germanic roots and a bit of Sanskrit, etc.), you’ll find that word usage can change quite bit over a couple thousand years.
Adumbrate means “Give a rough outline of; foreshadow; reveal only partially; obscure.”
When I took on the lead role in the movie, I agreed not to give away the plot, but I suppose I could give a brief adumbration of the premise.
Adumbrate contains the root umbra, Latin for shadow. It may seem that give an outline of and obscure are opposites, but think of it this way “ to adumbrate is to give a shadowy, vague picture of something, which could mean giving more information (if starting with nothing) or obscuring information (if starting with a clear picture) in order to reach that point.