What's the difference between abstruse and esoteric?

Abstruse


Definition:

  • (a.) Concealed or hidden out of the way.
  • (a.) Remote from apprehension; difficult to be comprehended or understood; recondite; as, abstruse learning.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Ed Miliband should be out and proud about his abstruse interests, his Masters in economics, his political obsession, his prioritising of the mental over the physical.
  • (2) Britain's sodden fields mean the debate about climate change is now no longer confined to some abstruse problem affecting glaciers in far-off countries.
  • (3) As if to underline how far leftfield Radiohead have subsequently shifted, it's followed by the instrumental Feral, which in its live incarnation – scattered rhythms overlaid with echoing vocal loops and waves of electronic noise – is arguably the most abstruse and uncommercial piece of music you're ever likely to hear booming around an arena venue.
  • (4) At its best, British public service broadcasting wants to share the best with everyone, it takes topics or themes which may seem abstruse or unapproachable – the science of the solar system, what you can learn about civilisation through physical artefacts – and then brings them to life with such conviction and creativity that they reach deep across a society.
  • (5) Thus the abstruse nomenclature in common use is avoided.
  • (6) Innovative dance music is still being made, but it exists almost entirely out of the realm of the charts: for all its ground-breaking brilliance, there have been few takers among the mainstream record-buyers for the new, deliberately abstruse, genre of "grime".
  • (7) I think the most abstruse one we've put in here is ferkidoodle."
  • (8) The lawyer among them, the ever resourceful Markus C Kerber, probably came up with the abstruse idea of supporting their case by quoting the right to resistance.
  • (9) Filesharing tools have gone from the primitive, easily monitored and abstruse (IRC or the early Napster) to a very easy, attack-resistant architecture that was built in response to entertainment industry attacks.
  • (10) Or perhaps it's just a load of bumwash with wilfully abstruse bells on.
  • (11) In a less abstruse way, Twitter has already shown itself to be a useful conduit for circumventing legal or governmental censorship.
  • (12) The origins of this type of aberrant maternal behavior remain abstruse, as do the long-term psychological effects on the child victims.
  • (13) Shenouda's hundred books and countless sermons untangled abstruse dogma in a straightforward way.
  • (14) If it sounds a little abstruse, by the way, to try to solve the feminist framing of the ancient Greeks, the idea of a sex strike has reappeared more recently, in fiction if not in fact.
  • (15) For the lay person attempting to referee the row, and having to interpret such abstruse concepts as the Gini coefficient and, as Gaffney neatly summarises, whether "the r > g inequality is amplifying the reconcentration trend", illumination is hard to discern.
  • (16) For children about to undergo surgery and for their families, anxiety caused by the abstruse procedure and the child's separation can provoke a crisis.
  • (17) Whereas the effects of Fadenoperation on adduction incomitance are perfectly clear, those on the deviation in primary position still remain very abstruse.
  • (18) This manuscript is concerned with concepts rather than abstruse details or mathematics.
  • (19) Model theory is a branch of mathematics that treats such abstruse questions as "is there another number system, different from 0,1,2, ... that satisfies all the axioms of arithmetic?"

Esoteric


Definition:

  • (a.) Designed for, and understood by, the specially initiated alone; not communicated, or not intelligible, to the general body of followers; private; interior; acroamatic; -- said of the private and more recondite instructions and doctrines of philosophers. Opposed to exoteric.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Underlying many criticisms of medical ethics is the failure to realize that medical ethics as such is not a reform movement or an effort to inspire moral behavior, that it is not and cannot be a specialist's body of esoteric knowledge, that it requires facts and conceptual analyses from other fields to do its work, and that value arguments can be carried farther than one generally expects.
  • (2) Our current understanding of these disease processes is discussed in an effort to review the current status of both the mundane and the esoteric infections of the kidney.
  • (3) The soundtrack is supplied by vinyl rotating on vintage record players, a gumball machine dispenses yellow, black and white gobstoppers, and the room is surveilled by the beady eyes of esoteric taxidermy that includes a peacock in full plume and a splendid Himalayan wild goat grazing among the soft seating.
  • (4) Bush's fantastical lyrics, influenced by children's literature, esoteric mystical knowledge, daydreams and the lore and legends of old Albion, seemed irrelevant, and deficient in street-cred at a time of tower-block social realism and agit-prop.
  • (5) Despite a slightly esoteric focus on the importance of adobe housing, House of Earth also includes graphic sex, including "a scorching lovemaking scene on a hay bale".
  • (6) From small and relatively esoteric fields 15 or 20 years ago, both have grown enormously.
  • (7) She reels off esoteric book recommendations ("I just devoured this great book about the mistaken theories of pre-historic sexuality.
  • (8) It is seen as the province of an elite, using obscure language and esoteric skills with no obvious connection with the world of nursing; in particular, it involves statistics.
  • (9) Whatever else may be happening in music, they doggedly pursue their own esoteric fascinations and Tomorrow's Harvest is their most haunting album yet.
  • (10) The curative use of opaque, esoteric formulae is widely reported; Tobelo also have a specialized speech I call 'neo-Ternatese' used for this purpose.
  • (11) A medicolegal autopsy protocol must serve as something more than an esoteric scientific document.
  • (12) In a field dominated by big brains and even bigger egos, each mining their own esoteric field, Markram's big data approach to experimental neuroscience represents a cultural revolution.
  • (13) Far from being some bizarre esoteric theory, intersectionality is alive and kicking all around us, and not just in exclusive ivory tower gender studies clubs.
  • (14) No longer do image macros and hashtags exist merely as esoteric in-jokes to amuse bored teenagers and social media managers.
  • (15) It may also be used to meet the sometimes esoteric needs of the researcher, the unique needs of the teacher, or the preferential needs of other individual recorders.
  • (16) The heirs - directly or indirectly - to an esoteric "moslem" knowledge which has been transmitted since the XVth century by the aristocratic islamized groups, the medicine-men are also the possessors of a knowledge which has been acquired by the autochthonous groups, that are said "masters of the earth" (commoners).
  • (17) Perhaps the church perceived these women, with their special, often esoteric, healing skills, as a threat to its supremacy in the lives of its parishioners.
  • (18) Finally, contrary to widespread opinion, few candidates fail on the basis of poor answers to what have been described as more esoteric questions.
  • (19) The group is thought to overlap with neo-Nazis, adherents of conspiracy theories and other esoteric beliefs.
  • (20) Investments, whether in stocks and shares, property or in more esoteric assets like commodities, are another matter.