Thursday, October 08, 2015

Word of the day: abstruse

The word of the day is abstruse:

  1. hard to understand; recondite; esoteri
  2. Obsolete. secret; hidden.
c.1600, from L. abstrusus, pp. of abstrudere "conceal," lit. "to thrust away," from ab- "away" + trudere "to thrust, push" (see extrusion). (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abstruse) 


"Hippocrates had once abstrusely opined that cancer was 'best left untreated, since patients live longer that way.'"

 - Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: a Biography of Cancer

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