different between unseen vs recondite

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?si?n/
• Rhymes: -i?n

Etymology 1

From Middle English unsen, unseyn, unseien, from Old English un?esewen, from Proto-Germanic *unsewanaz, equivalent to un- +? seen. Cognate with Dutch ongezien (“unseen”), German Low German unsehn (“unseen”), German ungesehen (“unseen”).

Adjective

unseen (not comparable)

1. Not seen or discovered; invisible.
   • 1890, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 9:

     You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.

   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 3:

     Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.
2. Unskilled; inexperienced.
3. Not hitherto noticed; unobserved.
   • ca. 1594', William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act I, sc. 2:

     I to the world am like a drop of water

     That in the ocean seeks another drop,

     Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,

     Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.

Derived terms

• sight unseen

Translations

Etymology 2

un- +? seen

Verb

unseen

1. past participle of unsee

   What has been seen cannot be unseen.

Noun

unseen (plural unseens)

1. An examination involving material not previously seen or studied.

   I have French and Latin unseens this summer.

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The adjective is derived from Latin reconditus (“concealed, hidden; difficult to understand, unintelligible; shy, withdrawn”), perfect passive participle of recond?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?