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abstruse

adjective/əbˈstruːs/

C2CEFR level
84/100Rarity: very rare
FormalRegister

Difficult to understand because of profundity or obscurity.

The lecture on quantum field theory was too abstruse for the general audience.

Similar: recondite, arcane, abstract

Origin: From Latin abstrusus 'concealed', from abstrudere 'to conceal'.

Topic: obscurity in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: obscurity