abstruse

abstruse
adjective
ab·;struse ;b-;str;s  ab-
Synonyms of abstruse
formal
: difficult to comprehend : recondite
the abstruse calculations of mathematicians
abstruse concepts/ideas/theories
abstrusely adverb
abstruseness noun


Did you know?
Latin Ties Things Together With Abstruse

Look closely at the following Latin verbs, all of which come from the verb tr;dere (“to push, thrust”): extrudere, intrudere, obtrudere, protrudere. Remove the last two letters of each of these and you get an English descendant whose meaning involves pushing or thrusting. Another tr;dere offspring, abstr;dere, meaning “to conceal,” gave English abstrude, meaning “to thrust away,” but that 17th-century borrowing has fallen out of use. An abstr;dere descendant that has survived is abstruse, an adjective that recalls the meaning of its Latin parent abstr;sus, meaning “concealed.” Like the similar-sounding obtuse, abstruse describes something difficult to understand—that is, something that has a “concealed” meaning.

Synonyms
arcane
deep
esoteric
hermetic
hermetical
profound
recondite
Examples of abstruse in a Sentence
Her subject matter is abstruse.
you're not the only one who finds Einstein's theory of relativity abstruse
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Some questioned what the White House could gain from reviewing abstruse rules for nuclear safety.
—Geoff Brumfiel, NPR, 9 May 2025
To emphasize the importance of math, Winkler displayed a handful of abstruse equations.
—Neil J. Rubenking, PC Magazine, 2 May 2025
The result is a topsy-turvy movie that is also spiritually profound in ways that the Marvel and DC franchises don’t dare but that became abstruse and chaotic in Snyder’s many Rebel Moon iterations.
—Armond White, National Review, 14 Mar. 2025
However, at the OXY ARTS gallery in Los Angeles, that abstruse portrait of Sagittarius A* looks a little different.
—Monisha Ravisetti, Space.com, 4 Jan. 2025