What's the difference between enigmatic and esoteric?

Enigmatic


Definition:

  • (a.) Alt. of Enigmatical

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The molecular nature of this group of agents is enigmatic, for neither an agent-specific nucleic acid nor a non-host protein has yet been identified.
  • (2) The recent discovery that an age-old drug, colchicine, can control this enigmatic, often unrecognized, recurrent disease means that most affected individuals can now lead virtually normal lives.
  • (3) This paper suggests several possible functions for this enigmatic compound or its metabolites.
  • (4) The possible etiological factors, manifestations and therapy of the enigmatic respiratory distress syndrome are discussed.
  • (5) We aren't surprised that the Romans had nothing to say about, say, the nearby Avebury stone circle, because it's far less manifest than Stonehenge – and by extension, the oblivion of time that blankets scores of British Neolithic and bronze age sites is in keeping with our current ignorance: to this day, so few people visit them that their enigmatic character is itself underimagined.
  • (6) Nevertheless a good deal remains enigmatical and further studies will be as interesting as actual.
  • (7) He smiled enigmatically when the questions turned to Greece and the possibility of a country leaving the euro, before dismissing such talk as "not being the working assumption of mine or any government".
  • (8) "His driver was built like a bodyguard, had a mouthful of gold teeth and when I asked where he was from he answered, enigmatically, 'From up north'," said Mr Galloway.
  • (9) This paper demonstrates that beta-glucosidase can catalyse the hydrolysis of a natural glycoside, and may provide a key to understanding the function of this enigmatic enzyme.
  • (10) The poetry of Williams and Eliot and Pound demonstrated that things, assembled even as enigmatic fragments, as images without spelled-out emotional and logical connectives, give vitality to the language and immediacy to the communication between writer and reader.
  • (11) Work of the past 20 years shows that flash synchrony is widespread geographically and taxonomically, appears in an astonishing range of spectacular display types, utilizes several neural flash-control mechanisms and is pervasively but enigmatically involved in courtship.
  • (12) Here, too, Capote displayed uncanny journalistic skills, capturing even the most languid and enigmatic of subjects – Brando in his pomp – and eliciting the kinds of confidences that left the actor reflecting ruefully on his "unutterable foolishness".
  • (13) Few infectious agents have provoked the many misconceptions that plague this enigmatic parasitic ameba.
  • (14) Perilymph fistula, an abnormal communication between the inner ear and the middle ear, is an enigmatic otologic disorder which may present with auditory or vestibular symptoms.
  • (15) Enigmatic and elusive, they may have named themselves after the US video director because they enjoy his work, or it may be a wry comment on something or other.
  • (16) The rarity of the tumor, particularly with regard to the anatomical location, is impressive as well as enigmatic.
  • (17) The enigmatic epileptic-epileptoid characteristics of EEG in migraineurs could be an expression of the electrically hyperactive "quasi epileptic foci" located mainly within the brainstem and generated by the insufficient opioid inhibition of sP-ergic neurons.
  • (18) One thing that most experts agree on is that the pope is enigmatic: while he seems to espouse liberal values on some days, raising the hopes of progressive Catholics of a changing church, his staunch adherence to conservative doctrine proves that he is not the radical reformer many liberals might wish that he was.
  • (19) It is believed that the nucleoside, produced locally, exerts a modulatory role on the neurohormonal output via still enigmatic mechanisms, involving a transmembranous carrier.
  • (20) The enigmatic patience of the sentences, the pedantic syntax, the peculiar antiquity of the diction, the strange recessed distance of the writing, in which everything seems milky and sub-aqueous, just beyond reach – all of this gives Sebald his particular flavour, so that sometimes it seems that we are reading not a particular writer but an emanation of literature.

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.