Incomprehensible vs Abstruse - What's the difference?
incomprehensible | abstruse | Related terms |
Impossible or very difficult to understand.
* Greg Bear, Heads , 1990
* Mark Twain, Letters From The Earth , 1938
(obsolete) Concealed or hidden out of the way; secret.
* 1612 , Thomas Shelton (translator), Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish author), The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant Don-Quixote of the Mancha , Part 4, Chapter 15, page 500:
* 1667 , , Paradise Lost :
Difficult to comprehend or understand; recondite; obscure; esoteric.
* 1548 , Bishop John Hooper, A Declaration of the Ten Holy Comaundementes of Almygthye God , Chapter 17 Curiosity, Page 218:
* 1748 , David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. ยง 13.
* 1855 , , History of Latin Christianity :
Incomprehensible is a related term of abstruse.
As adjectives the difference between incomprehensible and abstruse
is that incomprehensible is incomprehensible while abstruse is (obsolete) concealed or hidden out of the way; secret .incomprehensible
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- He shook his head. 'It's not only undefined, it's incomprehensible. Even the QL is befuddled by it and can't give me straight answers.'
- But this inference, which is supported by the opening of Book I, renders incomprehensible the note "and I have finished writing this," which is included within the dream.
Synonyms
* (l) * (l) * (l)Antonyms
* (l) * (l)External links
* * ----abstruse
English
Adjective
(en-adj)- O who is he that could carrie newes to our olde father, that thou wert but aliue, although thou wert hidden in the most abstruse dungeons of Barbarie; for his riches, my brothers and mine would fetch thee from thence.
- The eternal eye whose sight discerns abstrusest thoughts.
- ...at the end of his cogitacions, fyndithe more abstruse , and doutfull obiections then at the beginning...
- It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have the preference above the accurate and abstruse ;
- Profound and abstruse topics.