a.; also 6–7 abstruce. [ad. L. abstrūs-us thrust away, concealed, pa. pple. of abstrūd-ĕre: see prec. Mentioned by P. Heylin as an ‘uncouth and unusual word’ in 1656.]
† 1. Concealed, hidden, secret. Obs.
1602. Thynne, Chaucer (1865), 107. The Abstruse skill, the artificiall veine; By true Annalogie I ryhtly find.
1620. Shelton, Don Quixote (1746), II. IV. xv. 194. Hidden in the most abstruse dungeons of Barbary.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 712. The eternal eye, whose sight discerns Abstrusest thoughts.
1762. B. Stillingfleet, Linn. Or., in Misc. Tracts, 9. That the abstruse forces of the elements, which otherwise would escape our senses, may be made manifest.
2. Remote from apprehension or conception; difficult, recondite.
1599. Thynne, Animadv. (1865), 36. That abstruce scyence whiche Chaucer knewe full well.
1671. Milton, Sams. Ag., 1064. Be less abstruse, my riddling days are past.
1704. Swift, Tale of a Tub, Wks. 1760, I. 13. Readers, who cannot enter into the abstruser parts of the discourse.
1751. Watts, Improv. Mind (1801), 107. Let not young students apply themselves to search out deep, dark, and abstruse matters, far above their reach.
1848. H. Miller, First Impr. (1857), xix. 340. Men who had wrought their way … into some of the abstrusest questions of the schools.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), V. IX. viii. 380. But these were solitary abstruse thinkers or minds which formed a close esoteric school.
