Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being abstruse, or difficult to be understood; difficulty of apprehension.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality of being abstruse; difficulty of apprehension.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the quality of being unclear or abstruse and hard to understand
  • noun wisdom that is recondite and abstruse and profound

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

abstruse +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • Robust ratings prevail, while the departure of Amanda "middle distance" Burton in 2004 has seen wilful abstruseness replaced by a slicker, Spooks-ier, less overtly guff approach.

    Top Gear, New Tricks, Lewis … the television shows that won't die 2011

  • I mean, assuming the "New Yorker Cartoon Law of Biting Satire", which states that the jocularity of a particular pasquinade is directly proportional to the abstruseness of the language in which you couch it, it was hilarious.

    JERRY BRUCKHEIMER’S LAWS OF SCIENCE 2008

  • But it is an attempt to approach the supreme abstruseness of what surrounds us.

    Archive 2009-01-01 enowning 2009

  • They have taken up residence — both content in being confounded and resigned to his abstruseness, they have pledged their unfailing allegiance to Will Oldham the man and his countless incarnations.

    Buzzine » Bonnie Prince Billy 2009

  • But it is an attempt to approach the supreme abstruseness of what surrounds us.

    enowning enowning 2009

  • Pantheism of Force sounds unreal and unsound, compared with the sensible remarks upon the same subject by Dr. Badgers337 who sees the abstruseness of the doctrine and does not care to include it in hard and fast lines or to subject it to mere logical analysis.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • He upbraided the narrowness of American analytic philosophy and also scolded the academic New Left for its abstruseness and inwardness ( "The UC Berkeley English department is now fully multicultural, but what have they done lately for East Oakland?").

    John Seery: Richard Rorty: Ironically Upbeat in Dark Times 2008

  • There are two common senses of this: (1) opposition to the spread of knowledge-a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public; and (2) a style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness.

    'Daily Voting News' For August 08, 2008 2008

  • Lastly, we demonstrated in Chap.VIII. that the difficulty of understanding Scripture lies in the language only, and not in the abstruseness of the argument.

    Theologico-Political Treatise 2007

  • November 19th, 2005 at 8: 53 pm sex says: darting! near Imbrium abstruseness miasma snobbish swapping

    Think Progress » Cheney resignation 2005

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