Entry: abstruse (adj.)
In context: "...they of the several different abstruse legal definitions of Neglect and the tungsten-tipped battering ram for triple-locked apartment doors..."
Definition: Difficult to understand; obscure, recondite.
Other: Etymology: < classical Latin abstrūsus concealed, hidden, secret, recondite, use as adjective of past participle of abstrūdere abstrude v. Compare Middle French, French abstruse (1531), Catalan abstrús (1696), Spanish abstruso (1726), Italian astruso (1623).
In his 1656 commentary on H. L'Estrange's Reign King Charles (1655), P. Heylyn included abstruse in his list of ‘uncouth and unusual’ words and senses used, although the word is well attested before that date. L'Estrange uses the adjective once in that text, in sense 1.
SNOOT score: 3
Page: 377
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Definitive Jest is a vocabulary-building and SNOOT-approved word-of-the-day blog centered around David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
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