Abstruse Definition

ăb-stro͝os, əb-
adjective
Difficult to understand; recondite.
The students avoided the professor's abstruse lectures.
American Heritage
Hard to understand because of being extremely complex, intellectually demanding, highly abstract, etc.; deep; recondite.
Webster's New World
1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost.
The eternal eye whose sight discerns abstrusest thoughts.
Wiktionary

Difficult to comprehend or understand; recondite; obscure; esoteric. [First attested in the late 16th century.]

Wiktionary

Origin of Abstruse

  • From French abstrus or its source, Latin abstrūsus (“hidden, concealed”), the perfect passive participle of abstrūdō (“conceal, to push away”), itself from ab, abs (“away”) + trūdō (“thrust, push”). Cognate with German abstrus.

    From Wiktionary

  • Latin abstrūsus past participle of abstrūdere to hide abs-, ab- away ab–1 trūdere to push treud- in Indo-European roots

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

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