recondite means difficult, obscure.; Difficult to grasp or understand; abstruse, profound.
recondite is pronounced /ˈɹɛk(ə)nˌdaɪt/.
Why “recondite” is a great word
Recondite refers to knowledge or subjects that are difficult to grasp because they are profoundly obscure, hidden from common understanding. From the Latin reconditus ('hidden, concealed'), past participle of recondere ('to hide away'), first attested in English in the 1640s. Unlike 'esoteric' (which suggests knowledge reserved for a select, initiated group), 'recondite' emphasizes the inherent difficulty and profound obscurity of the subject itself; unlike 'abstruse' (which denotes a deliberate and complex intellectual depth), it can also describe what is merely forgotten or buried by time. It is the footnote citing a seventh-century scholiast, the precise function of a rusted mechanism whose purpose no one recalls, or the un-translatable idiom in a dead language—the kind of knowledge not locked away, but lost, waiting for an act of archaeology that feels less like learning and more like remembering something the world had tried to forget.
adj
- Difficult, obscure.; Difficult to grasp or understand; abstruse, profound.e.g.“a recondite tractate on alchemy”
- Difficult, obscure.; Little known; esoteric, secret.
- Difficult, obscure.; Having mastery over one's field, including its esoteric minutiae; learned.e.g.“It is delightful to see this recondite scholar [Thomas Browne]—this contemplative and refining dreamer—in the centre of his happy nor unworthy household.”
- Difficult, obscure.; Deliberately employing abstruse or esoteric allusions or references; intentionally obscure.e.g.“They afford a lesson to the modern metaphysical and recondite writers not to overvalue their works.”
- Hidden or removed from view.e.g.“The Eye is somewhat recondit betweene its Orbite.”
- Hidden or removed from view.; Difficult to see, especially because it is hidden by another structure.e.g.“Recondite, (aculeus) concealed within the abdomen, seldom exposed to view.”
- Hidden or removed from view.; Avoiding notice (particularly human notice); having a tendency to hide; shy.e.g.“Animals of this class are so recondite in their habits... so little known to naturalists beyond the more common species.”
noun
- A recondite (hidden or obscure) person or thing.
- A scholar or other person who is recondite, that is, who has mastery over his or her field, including its esoteric minutiae.
verb
- To conceal, cover up, hide.e.g.“Tendons: recondited, and hidde in their Muscle, as if they were in a purse imposed.”