Literary notes about Recondite (AI summary)
The term "recondite" is frequently deployed in literature to evoke a sense of hidden depth and abstract complexity. Authors use it to designate subjects or ideas that remain esoteric and not immediately accessible to everyday understanding, whether these involve the enigmas of human nature [1] or the intricate details of scientific or linguistic thought [2, 3]. At times, it carries a tone of reverence for the profound, such as when it underscores the lofty dimensions of intellectual inquiry or mystic symbolism [4, 5]. In other contexts, the word serves to suggest that the underlying reasons or principles—be they in art, philosophy, or religion—are not merely superficial but imbued with layers of meaning too intricate to be grasped at first glance [6, 7, 8].
- This is, indeed, one of the most recondite mysteries of human nature.
— from Poor Relations by Honoré de Balzac - I suspected that Tim Gorman would pelt me with even more recondite scientific terms if I let things go on.
— from Gossamer by George A. Birmingham - The scheme of the pronouns is very complete, and provides for nearly all the recondite distinctions of person.
— from Western Scenes and Reminiscences Together with Thrilling Legends and Traditions of the Red Men of the Forest by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft - I now called to mind that in the eagerness of my recondite investigation, I was keeping the poor man from his dinner.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving - The mystery of verse is like other abstruse and recondite mysteries,—it strikes the ordinary fleshly man as absurd.
— from The Future of English Poetry by Edmund Gosse - Let me say, immediately, that my final appeal is to nothing more recondite than religious faith.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James - That is not to say I claim those reasons to be profound, recondite, or settled in the deeps of psychology.
— from She Stands Accused by Victor MacClure - Yet some of Faraday's most recondite inquiries did bear practical fruit even during his own lifetime.
— from Michael FaradayThird Edition, with Portrait by J. H. (John Hall) Gladstone
