different between incomprehensible vs recondite

English

Etymology

From Middle French incomprehensible, from Latin incomprehensibilis.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /??nk?mp???h?ns?b?l/

Adjective

incomprehensible (comparative more incomprehensible, superlative most incomprehensible)

1. impossible or very difficult to understand.
   • 1904-09, Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, published 1962

     But this inference, which is supported by the opening of Book I, renders incomprehensible the note "and I have finished writing this," which is included within the dream.

   • 1990, Greg Bear, Heads,

     He shook his head. 'It's not only undefined, it's incomprehensible. Even the QL is befuddled by it and can't give me straight answers.'

Synonyms

• fathomless, unfathomable, unintelligible; See also Thesaurus:incomprehensible

Antonyms

• comprehensible, understandable; See also Thesaurus:comprehensible

Related terms

• incomprehension

Translations

Noun

incomprehensible (plural incomprehensibles)

1. Anything that is beyond understanding.

Further reading

• incomprehensible in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• incomprehensible in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Middle French

Etymology

First known attestation 1314, borrowed from Latin incomprehensibilis.

Adjective

incomprehensible m or f (plural incomprehensibles)

1. incomprehensible

Descendants

• ? English: incomprehensible

References

English

Etymology

The adjective is derived from Latin reconditus (“concealed, hidden; difficult to understand, unintelligible; shy, withdrawn”), perfect passive participle of recond? (“to conceal, hide; to put away; to re-establish, put back”) + -tus (suffix forming adjectives having the sense ‘provided with’). Recond? is derived from re- (prefix meaning ‘again’) + cond? (“to conceal, hide; to put away, store; to put together; to build, establish; to fashion, form”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *d?eh?- (“to do, make; to place, put”)). The English word is cognate with Catalan recòndit (“hidden; private”), Italian recondito (“hidden, recondite”), Middle French recondit (“hidden; secret”), Portuguese recôndito (“hidden, secluded; isolated, remote”), Spanish recóndito (“hidden, recondite”).

The noun is probably derived from the adjective.

The verb is derived from Latin recondere, the present active infinitive of recond?; see above.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /???k(?)n?da?t/, /???k?nda?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /???k?n?da?t/, /???k?n?da?t/, /?i?k?n?da?t/
• Hyphenation: re?cond?ite

Adjective

recondite (comparative more recondite, superlative most recondite)

1. (of areas of discussion or research) Difficult, obscure.
   1. Difficult to grasp or understand; abstruse, profound.
   2. Little known; esoteric, secret.
   3. (of scholars) Having mastery over one's field, including its esoteric minutiae; learned.
   4. (of writers) Deliberately employing abstruse or esoteric allusions or references; intentionally obscure.
      • 1788, Vicesimus Knox, Winter Evenings, II. v. i. 109

        They afford a lesson to the modern metaphysical and recondite writers not to overvalue their works.

      • 2004 Autumn, American Scholar, 129

        The voices of recondite writers quoted at length, forgotten storytellers weaving narratives, obscure scholars savaging one another.

2. (somewhat archaic) Hidden or removed from view.
   • 1649, John Bulwer, Pathomyotomia, ii. ii. 108

     The Eye is somewhat recondit betweene its Orbite.

   • 1796, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Letters, I. 209

     My recondite eye sits distent quaintly behind the flesh-hill, and looks as little as a tomtit's.

   • 1823, Charles Lamb, Old Benchers in Elia, 190

     The young urchins,... not being able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic.

   • 1887, Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Canoe Speaks" in Underwoods

     ...following the recondite brook,

     Sudden upon this scene I look,

     And light with unfamiliar face

     On chaste Diana's bathing-place

   • 2002, Nick Tosches, In the Hand of Dante, 253

     Silent calligraphy sounds that were like those of the sweet fluent water of a recondite stream.

   1. (botany, entomology, obsolete, rare, of a structure) Difficult to see, especially because it is hidden by another structure.
      • 1825, Thomas Say, Say's Entomol., Glossary, 28

        Recondite, (aculeus) concealed within the abdomen, seldom exposed to view.

   2. (chiefly zoology, rare) Avoiding notice (particularly human notice); having a tendency to hide; shy.

      Synonym: retiring

      • 1835, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 125, 361

        Animals of this class are so recondite in their habits... so little known to naturalists beyond the more common species.

Derived terms

• reconditely
• reconditeness

Translations

Noun

recondite (plural recondites)

1. (rare) A recondite (hidden or obscure) person or thing.
2. (rare) A scholar or other person who is recondite, that is, who has mastery over his or her field, including its esoteric minutiae.

Verb

recondite (third-person singular simple present recondites, present participle reconditing, simple past and past participle recondited)

1. (transitive, obsolete, rare) To conceal, cover up, hide.

References

Further reading

• recondite at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• centeroid, decretion, red notice, tenrecoid

Italian

Adjective

recondite

1. feminine plural of recondito

Anagrams

• condirete, decretino, intercedo

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /re?kon.di.te/, [r??k?n?d??t??]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /re?kon.di.te/, [r??k?n?d?it??]

Verb

recondite

1. second-person plural present active imperative of recond?