incondite

Meanings

adjective

Badly-arranged, ill-composed, disorderly (especially of artistic works).
I wish I might digress and tell you more ... But my tale is sufficiently incondite already.
1955, Vladimir Nabokov, chapter 17, in Lolita
1 more example
I am now at liberty to confess, that much which I have heard objected to my late friend’s writings was well-founded. Crude they are, I grant you—a sort of unlicked, incondite things—villainously pranked in an affected array of antique modes and phrases.
1833, [Charles Lamb], “Preface. By a Friend of the Late Elia.”, in The Last Essays of Elia. […], London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page v
Rough, unrefined.
[T]he ſecond [symptom] is, falſò cogitata loqui, to talke to themſelues, or to vſe inarticulate, incondite voices, ſpeeches, abſolete geſtures,[…].
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Education, custome, continuance of time, condition, mixt with other diseases, by fits, inclination, &c.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 3, member 1, subsection 4, page 172

Borrowed from Latin inconditus.

More words from Latin

Cite this entry

APA

incondite. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/incondite

MLA

“incondite.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/incondite. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “incondite,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/incondite.