abstrusityn.

1632 H. Reynolds Mythomystes 42 Those secreter Mysteries, and abstrusities of most high diuinity.

1658 Sir T. Browne Garden of Cyrus v, in Hydriotaphia: Urne-buriall 197 He may meet with abstrusities of no ready resolution.

1701 J. Norris Ess. Ideal World I. vii. 408 To lay open the school-account of this matter, and unravel it through all its abstrusities.

1755 B. Martin Mag. Arts & Sci. viii. 165 Reason, Nature, and Analogy here are but blind Guides; they conduct us with Certainty but a little Way in the Abstrusities of infinite Creation.

1847 Southern & Western Lit. Messenger & Rev. Feb. 128/1 An intelligent female friend..who desired, without going into the abstrusities of the beautiful science of Astronomy, to revive and extend the knowledge of it which she had acquired at school.

1893 Evening Herald (Syracuse, N.Y.) 25 Nov. 2/3 Unfortunately mental disease may result from the persistent dwelling upon almost any abstrusity.

1925 T. Dreiser Amer. Trag. II. iii. xiii. 179 There were criminal lawyers deeply versed in the abstrusities and tricks of the criminal law.

1999 R. King Indian Philos. i. 18 ‘The common folk’..were deemed incapable of understanding the abstrusities and importance of the various Vedic rituals.

1649 W. Charleton in tr. J. B. van Helmont Ternary of Paradoxes Prolegomena sig. c4^v Abstrusity sufficient to empuzle the scrutiny of the most daring and Eagle-eyed Philosophy.

1701 W. Anstruther Ess., Moral & Divine iii. 98 The incomprehensibility arises not from the abstrusity, but from the absurdity of the thing as involving in its essence manifest contradictions.

1793 W. Taplin Gentleman's Stable Dir. II. 313 We take leave of the dry and unentertaining study of medical abstrusity, and proceed to such part of our plan as will prove more entertaining and acceptable.

1839 M. F. Tupper Proverb. Philos. (ed. 3) 285 All will again be for abstrusity.

1867 Michigan Univ. Mag. July 70 A more thorough classical preparation, so that the student..may be prepared to appreciate the beauties of Horace, or the abstrusity of Quintilian.

1924 Musical Times 65 1101/2 That another note added to a chord gives it piquancy..is true up to a point. Beyond that,..it gives to the harmony only obscurity and abstrusity.

1997 D. J. Cahill How Consumers pick Hotel vi. 90 Some of these reports are almost at a level of academic abstrusity, often leaving readers to scratch their heads and wonder what any of it might mean.