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Recondite vs Superficial - What's the difference?

recondite | superficial |

As adjectives the difference between recondite and superficial

is that recondite is (of areas of study and literature) difficult, obscure; particularly: while superficial is shallow, lacking substance.

As a verb recondite

is to hide, cover up, conceal.

As a noun superficial is

(chiefly in plural) a surface detail.

recondite

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (of areas of study and literature) Difficult, obscure; particularly:
  • # Abstruse, profound, difficult to grasp
  • #* 1619 , John Bainbridge, Astronomicall description of the late comet , 42
  • I hope this new Messenger from Heauen]] doth bring happie tidings of some munificent and liberall Patron... by whose gracious bountie the most recondite mysteries of this abstruse and [[divine, diuine science shall at length be manifested.
  • #* ante'' 1894 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), ''Amateur Emigrant (1895), 40
  • Humanly speaking, it is a more important matter to play the fiddle, even badly, than to write huge works upon recondite subjects.
  • # Esoteric, little known; secret
  • #* 1644 , John Bulwer, Chirologia: or The naturall language of the hand. Whereunto is added Chironomic or the Art of manuall rhetoricke , 137
  • There was in the man much learning, and that of the more inward & recondit , a great Antiquary, and one that had a certain large possession of Divine and Humane]] [[laws, Lawes.
  • #* 1722 , F. Lee, Epistolary Discourses , 41
  • The Apostle Paul had taken up many things out of these Recondite and Apocryphal Writings.
  • #* 1817 , (Samuel Taylor Coleridge), Biographia Literaria , I. iii. 65
  • [Of Southey:] I look in vain for any writer who has conveyed so much information, from so many and such recondite sources.
  • #* 1849 , (Herman Melville), Mardi: and A Voyage Thither , II. §67
  • But I beseech thee, wise Doxodox! instruct me in thy dialectics, that I may embrace thy more recondite lore.
  • #* 1921 , (Joseph Conrad), Secret Agent'', Preface in ''Works , VIII. page xvii
  • Suggestions for certain personages... came from various sources which... some reader may have recognized. They are not very recondite .
  • #* 1948 , (William Somerset Maugham), Catalina , xv. 83
  • He was never at a loss for a recondite allusion.
  • #* 1992 Autumn, American Scholar , 576/1
  • It was hardly foreordained that a poor orphan from darkest Brittany... working in the recondite realms of Semitic philology, should play such a role in his time.
  • #* 2004 , Alexander McCall Smith, Sunday Philosophy Club , xxi. 224
  • While oenophiles resorted to recondite adjectives, whisky [sic] nosers spoke the language of everyday life.
  • # (of writers) Deliberately obscure; employing abstruse or esoteric allusions or references
  • #* 1788 , Vicesimus Knox, Winter Evenings , II. v. i. 109
  • They afford a lesson to the modern metaphysical and recondite writers not to overvalue their works.
  • #* 1817 , (Samuel Taylor Coleridge), Biographia literaria; or, Biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions , II. xxii. 172
  • In the play of fancy, , to my feelings, is not always graceful and sometimes recondite .
  • #* 2004 Autumn, American Scholar , 129
  • The voices of recondite writers quoted at length, forgotten storytellers weaving narratives, obscure scholars savaging one another.
  • # (of scholars) Learnèd]], having mastery over one's field, including its esoteric [[minutiæ
  • #* 1836 , (Edward Bulwer-Lytton), "Sir Thomas Browne" in The Critical and Miscellaneous Writings of Sir Edward Lytton (1841), II, 41
  • It is delightful to see this recondite scholar — this contemplative and refining dreamer — in the centre of his happy nor unworthy household.
  • #* 1891 , George T. Ferris, The Great German Composers
  • [Of ]: Our musician rapidly became known far and wide throughout the musical centres of Germany as a learned and recondite composer.
  • #* 1998 , , Art for Art's Sake & Literary Life , 1
  • Cousin's lectures take their initial cue from the weighty treatises of a remote, recondite thinker named (Immanuel Kant).
  • Hidden or removed from view
  • * 1649 , John Bulwer, Pathomyotomia , ii. ii. 108
    • The Eye is somewhat recondit betweene its Orbite.
  • * 1796 , (Samuel Taylor Coleridge), Letters , I. 209
    • My recondite eye sits distent quaintly behind the flesh-hill, and looks as little as a tomtit's.
  • * 1823 , (Charles Lamb), Old Benchers in Elia , 190
    • The young urchins,... not being able to guess at its recondite machinery, were almost tempted to hail the wondrous work as magic.
  • * 1825 , Thomas Say, Say's Entomol. , Glossary, 28
    • Recondite , (aculeus) concealed within the abdomen, seldom exposed to view.
  • * 1857 , (Charles Dickens), Little Dorrit , §21
    • How such a man should suppose himself unwell without reason, you may think strange. But I have found nothing the matter with him. He may have some deep-seated recondite complaint. I can't say. I only say, that at present I have not found it out.
  • * 1887 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), "The Canoe Speaks" in Underwoods
    • ...following the recondite brook,
    Sudden upon this scene I look,
    And light with unfamiliar face
    On chaste Diana's bathing-place
  • * 2002 , Nick Tosches, In the Hand of Dante , 253
    • Silent calligraphy sounds that were like those of the sweet fluent water of a recondite stream.
  • Shy, avoiding notice (particularly human notice)
  • * 1835 , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society , 125, 361
    • Animals of this class are so recondite in their habits... so little known to naturalists beyond the more common species.

    Verb

    (recondit)
  • to hide, cover up, conceal
  • * 1578 , John Banister, The History of Man , i. f. 32
    • Tendons: recondited , and hidde in their Muscle, as if they were in a purse imposed.

    References

    * Oxford English Dictionary , 3rd ed. "recondite, adj." and "v." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2009. *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    superficial

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Shallow, lacking substance.
  • At face value.
  • *
    • Secondly, I continue to base my concepts on intensive study of a limited suite of collections, rather than superficial study of every packet that comes to hand.
  • Of or pertaining to the surface.
  • Being near the surface.
  • (rare) Two-dimensional; drawn on a flat surface.

    • Synonyms

    * (of or pertaining to the surface) surficial

    Antonyms

    * in-depth * thorough * (lacking substance) substantive

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (chiefly in plural) A surface detail.
    • He always concentrates on the superficials and fails to see the real issue.

    Related terms

    * superfice (archaic) ----