Recondite
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈrɛk(ə)ndʌɪt/, /rᵻˈkɒndʌɪt/
- IPA: /ˈrɛkənˌdaɪt/, /rəˈkɑnˌdaɪt/, /riˈkɑnˌdaɪt/
Origin
From Latin reconditus ("hidden, concealed"), past participle of recondŠ("to put back, to reëstablish; to put away, to hide"), from re- ("again") + condŠ("to build, to form; to store; to conceal")
Full definition of recondite
Adjective
recondite
- of areas of study and literature Difficult, obscure; particularly:
- Abstruse, profound, difficult to grasp
- 1619, John Bainbridge, Astronomicall description of the late comet, 42I hope this new Messenger from Heauen doth bring happie tidings of some munificent and liberall Patron... by whose gracious bountie the most recondite mysteries of this abstruse and diuine science shall at length be manifested.
- ante 1894, Robert Louis Stevenson, Amateur Emigrant (1895), 40Humanly speaking, it is a more important matter to play the fiddle, even badly, than to write huge works upon recondite subjects.
- Esoteric, little known; secret
- 1644, John Bulwer, Chirologia: or The naturall language of the hand. Whereunto is added Chironomic or the Art of manuall rhetoricke, 137There was in the man much learning, and that of the more inward & recondit, a great Antiquary, and one that had a certain large possession of Divine and Humane Lawes.
- 1722, F. Lee, Epistolary Discourses, 41The Apostle Paul had taken up many things out of these Recondite and Apocryphal Writings.
- 1817, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, I. iii. 65Southey: I look in vain for any writer who has conveyed so much information, from so many and such recondite sources.
- 1849, Herman Melville, Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, II. §67But I beseech thee, wise Doxodox! instruct me in thy dialectics, that I may embrace thy more recondite lore.
- 1921, Joseph Conrad, Secret Agent, Preface in Works, VIII. p. xviiSuggestions for certain personages... came from various sources which... some reader may have recognized. They are not very recondite.
- 1948, William Somerset Maugham, Catalina, xv. 83He was never at a loss for a recondite allusion.
- 1992 Autumn, American Scholar, 576/1It was hardly foreordained that a poor orphan from darkest Brittany... working in the recondite realms of Semitic philology, should play such a role in his time.
- 2004, Alexander McCall Smith, Sunday Philosophy Club, xxi. 224While oenophiles resorted to recondite adjectives, whisky sic nosers spoke the language of everyday life.
- of writers Deliberately obscure; employing abstruse or esoteric allusions or references
- 1788, Vicesimus Knox, Winter Evenings, II. v. i. 109They afford a lesson to the modern metaphysical and recondite writers not to overvalue their works.
- 1817, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia literaria; or, Biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions, II. xxii. 172In the play of fancy, William Wordsworth, to my feelings, is not always graceful and sometimes recondite.
- 2004 Autumn, American Scholar, 129The voices of recondite writers quoted at length, forgotten storytellers weaving narratives, obscure scholars savaging one another.
- of scholars Learnèd, having mastery over one's field, including its esoteric minutiæ
- 1836, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, "Sir Thomas Browne" in The Critical and Miscellaneous Writings of Sir Edward Lytton (1841), II, 41It is delightful to see this recondite scholar — this contemplative and refining dreamer — in the centre of his happy nor unworthy household.
- 1891, George T. Ferris, The Great German ComposersJohann Sebastian Bach
- 1998, Gene H. Bell-Villada, Art for Art's Sake & Literary Life, 1Cousin's lectures take their initial cue from the weighty treatises of a remote, recondite thinker named Immanuel Kant.
- (as a general term, somewhat archaic ; as a term in botany and entomology, obscure, rare) Hidden or removed from view
- 1649, John Bulwer, Pathomyotomia, ii. ii. 108The Eye is somewhat recondit betweene its Orbite.
- 1796, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Letters, I. 209My recondite eye sits distent quaintly behind the flesh-hill, and looks as little as a tomtit's.
- 1823, Charles Lamb, Old Benchers in Elia, 190The young urchins,... not being able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic.
- 1825, Thomas Say, Say's Entomol., Glossary, 28Recondite, (aculeus) concealed within the abdomen, seldom exposed to view.
- 1857, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, §21How such a man should suppose himself unwell without reason, you may think strange. But I have found nothing the matter with him. He may have some deep-seated recondite complaint. I can't say. I only say, that at present I have not found it out.
- 1887, Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Canoe Speaks" in Underwoods...following the recondite brook,Sudden upon this scene I look,And light with unfamiliar faceOn chaste Diana's bathing-place
- 2002, Nick Tosches, In the Hand of Dante, 253Silent calligraphy sounds that were like those of the sweet fluent water of a recondite stream.
- (zoology, rare) Shy, avoiding notice (particularly human notice)
- 1835, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 125, 361Animals of this class are so recondite in their habits... so little known to naturalists beyond the more common species.