Question

abstruse adjective 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." : difficult to comprehend : recondite

Accepted Answer

February 7, 2019 ub-STROOSS "Today's physics breakthroughs tend to be so abstruse that summarizing them is like trying to explain the financial-derivatives market to a three-year-old." — The National Review, 16 Apr. 2018"Before the Apple Macintosh, the first computer to popularize point-and-click, people using home computers had to familiarize themselves with abstruse text commands." — Clive Thompson, The New York Times, 18 Nov. 2018

Word	abstruse
Date	February 7, 2019
Type	adjective
Syllables	ub-STROOSS
Etymology	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."
Examples	"Today's physics breakthroughs tend to be so abstruse that summarizing them is like trying to explain the financial-derivatives market to a three-year-old." — The National Review, 16 Apr. 2018 "Before the Apple Macintosh, the first computer to popularize point-and-click, people using home computers had to familiarize themselves with abstruse text commands." — Clive Thompson, The New York Times, 18 Nov. 2018
Definition	: difficult to comprehend : recondite

Meaning Abstruse Adjective Latin Trudere English Descendant February