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Latin Ties Things Together With Abstruse
Look closely at the following Latin verbs, all of which are derived from the verb trudere ("to push, thrust"): extrudere, intrudere, obtrudere, protrudere. Remove the last two letters of each of these and you get an English descendant whose meaning involves pushing or thrusting. Another trudere offspring, abstrudere, meaning "to push away" or "to conceal," gave English abstrude, meaning "to thrust away," but that 17th-century borrowing has fallen out of use. An abstrudere descendant that has survived is abstruse, an adjective that recalls the meaning of its Latin parent abstrūsus, meaning "concealed."
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Examples of abstruse in a Sentence
Nicholas Dawidoff, The New Yorker, 3 Nov. 2024
At the heart of the progress has been von Neumann’s abstruse research.
—Quanta Magazine, 25 Sep. 2024
Unimaginative critics misunderstood how 300 abstracted the West’s war impulse, but now Snyder offers facile, abstruse justifications for his characters’ erotic and violent impulses.
—Armond White, National Review, 9 Aug. 2024
In contrast to the abstruse beauty of the séance room, the primary bedroom and bath, which the homeowner calls the goddess suite, are all lightness and elegance, a pale-hued sanctuary that casts a spell of serenity tinged with decadence.
—Mayer Rus, Architectural Digest, 7 Aug. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Abstruse.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abstruse. Accessed 18 Dec. 2024.
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abstruse
adjective
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