abstruse
Hard to grasp
Abstruse describes ideas, arguments, or subjects that are difficult to understand, often because they are complex, obscure, or poorly explained.
The word typically applies to intellectual or academic material that requires considerable effort to penetrate: The professor's abstruse lecture on quantum mechanics left most students bewildered.
Unlike simply hard or challenging, abstruse suggests a kind of impenetrability—the meaning is there but buried deep.
Profoundly knowledgeable
- academicRelating to education or theory
- theoreticalBased on hypothesis, untested
- philosophicalConcerned with fundamental truths
- intellectualConcerning thought and reason
cerebral · learned · pedantic · professorial · doctoral · rarefied · specialized · technical
Obscure and specialized
- esotericAccessible to few
- hermeticImpenetrably closed off
- occultConcealed from view
- cabalisticRelating to secret mysticism
gnostic · mystical · sibylline · Delphic · oracular · cryptic · enigmatic · mysterious
Impassable to light
- unclearNot easily understood
- vagueUnclear, ill-defined
- ambiguousHaving multiple interpretations
- nebulousUnclear and formless
murky · clouded · foggy · hazy · indistinct · incomprehensible · unintelligible · perplexing
Elaborately detailed, many parts
- convolutedExcessively complex or twisted
- labyrinthineExtremely complex and winding
- byzantineDauntingly intricate and devious
- tortuousFull of twists
knotty · tangled · involved · complicated · sophisticated · dense · elaborate · multifaceted
erudite
Profoundly knowledgeable
- academicRelating to education or theory
- theoreticalBased on hypothesis, untested
- philosophicalConcerned with fundamental truths
intellectual · cerebral · learned · pedantic · professorial · doctoral · rarefied · specialized · technical · highbrow
recondite
Obscure and specialized
cabalistic · gnostic · mystical · sibylline · Delphic · oracular · cryptic · enigmatic · mysterious · secret
opaque
Impassable to light
nebulous · murky · clouded · foggy · hazy · indistinct · incomprehensible · unintelligible · perplexing · puzzling
intricate
Elaborately detailed, many parts
- convolutedExcessively complex or twisted
- labyrinthineExtremely complex and winding
- byzantineDauntingly intricate and devious
tortuous · knotty · tangled · involved · complicated · sophisticated · dense · elaborate · multifaceted · layered
- complexitycomplex, complicated, simple, intricate, easy
- fancy wordsgrandiloquent, magniloquent, sesquipedalian, pulchritudinous, tintinnabulation
abstruseclear
Without obstruction or fog
lucid · plain · obvious · intelligible · comprehensible
abstruseaccessible
Able to be reached
popular · exoteric · mainstream · common · commonplace