abstruse
Meanings
Adjective Satellite
- difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge
- "the professor's lectures were so abstruse that students tended to avoid them"
Adj
- Difficult to comprehend or understand; obscure.
- Concealed or hidden; secret.
Origin / Etymology
PIE word
*h₂epó
Learned borrowing from Latin abstrūsus (“concealed, hidden; having been concealed”), an adjective use of the perfect passive participle of abstrūdō (“to conceal, hide; to push or thrust away”), from abs- (from ab- (prefix meaning ‘away; from; away from’)) + trūdō (“to push, shove; to thrust”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *trewd- (“to push; to thrust”)).
Cognates
* Catalan abstrús
* German abstrus (“abstruse”)
* Italian astruso (“abstruse”)
* Middle French abstruse (modern French abstrus, abstruse (“(derogatory, literary) abstruse”)
* Portuguese abstruso (“abstruse”)
* Spanish abstruso (“abstruse”)
Synonyms
abstruse, abstrused, abstrusive, arcane, behind the scenes, catlike, Chinese, clandestine, cloak-and-dagger, concealed, confidential, covered, covert, cryptic, dark, deep, deep-laid, dense, dern, disguised, enigmatic, esoteric, fathomless, furtive, Greek, hidden, huggermugger, hush-hush, impenetrable, inapprehensible, incognito, incognizable, incomprehensible, inconspicuous, ineffable, inenubilable, inexplicable, inscrutable, insensible, insoluble, insolvable, invisible, latent, low profile, lurksome, lurky, mousy, mysterious, nonunderstandable, obfuscated, obfuscatory, obscure, obscured, occluded, occulted, off-the-books, on the down-low, on the sly, private, recondite, retruse, secluded, secret, secreted, secretive, silent, slinky, sly, sneaky, snug, stealthy, sub rosa, surreptitious, tect, thick, unapparent, undecipherable, under the radar, under wraps, under-the-table, undercover, underground, undisclosed, undiscoverable, unexplainable, unfathomable, ungraspable, unintelligible, unknowable, unperceived, ununderstandable, veiled
Antonyms
clear, confusing, incomprehensible, obvious, open, patent, unconcealed, understandable, unhidden
Scrabble Score: 10
abstruse is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordabstruse is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
abstruse is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary