abstruse

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.

Adjective

• Obscure and difficult to understand.

Examples

• He won with a series of abstruse words nobody else had heard of.

Synonyms

deep, recondite, Chinese, Greek, abstruse, abstrused, abstrusive, arcane, behind the scenes, catlike, clandestine, cloak-and-dagger, concealed, confidential, covered, covert, cryptic, dark, deep-laid, dense, dern, disguised, enigmatic, esoteric, fathomless, furtive, 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, 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

Related Words

abstrude, abstrused, abstrusion, abstrusive, abstrusively, retruse