esoteric
es-uh-TAIR-ikadjMeaning understood or enjoyed by only a small group
Memory hook ESO = WITHIN: for INSIDERS only. Inside the Button Club, three members laugh at a joke about four-hole buttons that no outsider understands; their humor is esoteric.
The club’s esoteric jokes about antique buttons made no sense to newcomers.
In context Most visitors hurried past the exhibit, but a few experts lingered for hours; its subject, the history of buttons, was too esoteric for the general public.
Similar obscure, little-known, specialized, mysterious
Opposite popular, familiar, well-known
From Greek esoterikos, “belonging to an inner circle,” from a word meaning “within.”