recondite
Americanadjective
-
dealing with very profound, difficult, or abstruse subject matter.
a recondite treatise.
-
beyond ordinary knowledge or understanding; esoteric.
recondite principles.
- Synonyms:
- deep
- Antonyms:
- exoteric
-
little known; obscure.
a recondite fact.
- Synonyms:
- secret, occult, mysterious
- Antonyms:
- well-known
adjective
-
requiring special knowledge to be understood; abstruse
-
dealing with abstruse or profound subjects
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of recondite
1640–50; earlier recondit < Latin reconditus recondite, hidden (originally past participle of recondere to hide), equivalent to re- re- + cond ( ere ) to bring together ( con- con- + -dere to put) + -itus -ite 2
Explanation
It's rather difficult to penetrate the meaning of recondite. Fitting, because it's an adjective that basically means hard for the average mind to understand. If it's really hard to comprehend, then it's safe to say it's recondite. In the same family as "abstruse," "esoteric" and "totally deep, man," recondite is a very serious word that you could use to describe obscure philosophy books, high level mathematical theory, and the series finale of The Sopranos — you know, things that make your brain hurt.
Vocabulary lists containing recondite
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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100 SAT words Beginning with "R"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Less a recondite modernist experiment than a grandly mysterious yet accessible achievement, the composition marked a profound shift in 20th-century classical music.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 22, 2026
Today, a number of doyens in the recondite field of AI admit they don’t know where all this is headed.
From Seattle Times • Dec. 6, 2023
In the 1950s and ’60s, Auden hoped he might be regarded as “a minor Atlantic Goethe” even as his poetry grew loose and talky, his diction occasionally recondite.
From Washington Post • Jun. 29, 2022
By all accounts, Mr. Wilson was erudite about the recondite, a prolific author of some 60 books on topics ranging from angels to pirate utopias and all manner of renegade religions.
From New York Times • Jun. 11, 2022
Instead, I spent some two hours a day in the translation of fragments from Greek and Latin; the texts being chosen for their convolution, recondite meaning, dryness, and insipidity.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
