recondite
- Not known by many people; dealing with obscure or little-known subject matter.
- Hidden from sight; concealed (an older, now rare sense).
In a sentence
- His thesis explored the recondite field of Byzantine numismatics, surprising even his committee.
- She had a talent for finding recondite facts that none of her colleagues had encountered.
Usage note. Recondite stresses that knowledge is little-known and hard to access due to its depth or rarity, while 'obscure' can simply mean forgotten or unpopular; recondite carries a slight flavor of scholarly difficulty.
Where it comes from
English recondite · entered English mid-17th c.
From Latin reconditus, past participle of recondere ('to put away, store, hide'), from re- ('back, away') and condere ('to put together, store'). It entered English in the mid-17th century.