recondite

adjective

re·​con·​dite ˈre-kən-ˌdīt  ri-ˈkän- 

1

: difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend : deep

a recondite subject

2

: of, relating to, or dealing with something little known or obscure

recondite fact about the origin of the holiday

—Floyd Dell

3

: hidden from sight : concealed

reconditely adverb

reconditeness noun

Did you know?

Recondite is one of those underused but useful words that’s always a boon to one’s vocabulary. Though it describes something difficult to understand, there is nothing recondite about the word’s history. It dates to the early 1600s, when it was coined from the Latin word reconditus, the past participle of recondere, “to conceal.” (“Concealed” is also a meaning of recondite, albeit an obscure one today.) Remove the re- of recondite and you get something even more obscure: condite, an obsolete verb meaning both “to pickle or preserve” and “to embalm.” Add the prefix in- to that quirky charmer and we get incondite, which means “badly put together,” as in “incondite prose.” All three words have the Latin word condere at their root; that verb is translated variously as “to put or bring together” and “to put up or store”—as in, perhaps, some pickles or preserves.

Synonyms

• abstruse
• arcane
• deep
• esoteric
• hermetic
• hermetical
• profound

Examples of recondite in a Sentence

geochemistry is a recondite subject

Recent Examples on the Web

In retrospect, the integer distance problem was waiting for mathematicians who were willing to consider more unruly curves than hyperbolas and then draw on recondite tools from algebraic geometry and number theory to tame them. —Quanta Magazine, 1 Apr. 2024

But a few key paragraphs within the 88-page filing mention the exclusion and social shaming of non-iPhone users confined inside green chat bubbles, distinguishing this case from some of the more recondite explanations of tech market competition in recent years. —Lauren Goode, WIRED, 24 Mar. 2024

There are familiar words describing nature particular to the U.S., like prairie, skunk, coyote and chipmunk, but also more recondite ones, like catawba (a species of grape and type of sparkling wine), catawampous (fierce, destructive) and cottondom (the region in which cotton is grown). —Sarah Ogilvie, WSJ, 11 Nov. 2023

Other efforts required more recondite statistical analysis. —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2023

Pierre Boulez — like Bernstein, a composer, though in a more recondite modernist mode — innovated with repertory mixtures and concert formats. —Zachary Woolfe, New York Times, 7 Feb. 2023

After describing the mummification process in recondite detail—not only why the brain was removed through the nose but how exactly natron dried out the rest of the body—the child drew an elaborate cartouche with the hieroglyphs used to spell my name. —Casey Cep, The New Yorker, 7 Feb. 2022

Not to suggest that this is merely a specialist and recondite affair: Bessel van der Kolk, whose psychiatric work with trauma victims is predicated on the idea that neuroimaging can identify an objective physiological correlate to psychic distress, is one such semi-hard scientist. —Will Self, Harper's Magazine, 23 Nov. 2021

Zhao is hardly the first filmmaker to blur fiction and nonfiction techniques with such assurance; regular festivalgoers have likely seen far more radical, recondite examples of her sensibility in the work of auteurs like Jia Zhangke, Pedro Costa and Oliver Laxe. —Los Angeles Times, 25 Apr. 2021

Word History

Etymology

Latin reconditus, past participle of recondere to conceal, from re- + condere to store up, from com- + -dere to put — more at com-, do

First Known Use

1619, in the meaning defined at sense 2

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Kids Definition

recondite

adjective

re·​con·​dite ˈrek-ən-ˌdīt  ri-ˈkän- 

1

: hidden from sight

2

: difficult to understand : deep

a recondite subject