recondite

It's Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 12th. Today's word is Rekondite, also pronounced Rekondite, and spelled R-E-C-O-N-D-I-T-E. Rekondite is an adjective. It's a formal word used to describe something that is difficult to understand or that is not known by many people. Here's the word used in a sentence from Forbes. Each medical school has variations on its prerequisites, but all require a strong foundation in the sciences. This includes courses such as the notoriously Rekondite Organic Chemistry, as well as Biology, General Chemistry, and Physics. Rekondite is one of those underused but useful words that's always a boon to one's vocabulary. Though it describes something difficult to understand, there's nothing Rekondite about the word's history. It dates to the early 1600s when it was coined from the Latin word Rekonditus, the past participle of Rekondere, meaning to conceal. Concealed is also a meaning of Rekondite, albeit an obscure one today. Remove the prefix R-E of Rekondite and you get something even more obscure, Condite, an obsolete verb meaning both to pickle or preserve and to embalm. Add the prefix I-N to that quirky charmer and we get incondit or incondite, which means badly put together as in incondit prose. All three words have the Latin word Condere as their root. That verb is translated variously as to put or bring together and to put up or store as in perhaps some pickles or preserves. With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.