abstract
Pronunciation: /ˈæbˌstɹækt/
The English word “abstract” has 20 meanings listed here.
noun
- An abridgement or summary of a longer publication.
- Something that concentrates in itself the qualities of a larger item, or multiple items.
- Concentrated essence of a product.
- A powdered solid extract of a medicinal substance mixed with lactose.
- An abstraction; an abstract term; that which is abstract.
- The theoretical way of looking at things; something that exists only in idealized form.
- An abstract work of art.
- A summary title of the key points detailing a tract of land, for ownership; abstract of title.
adjective
- Derived; extracted.
- Drawn away; removed from; apart from; separate.
- Not concrete: conceptual, ideal.
- Insufficiently factual.
- Apart from practice or reality; vague; theoretical; impersonal; not applied.
- As a noun, denoting a concept or intangible as opposed to an object, place, or person.
- Difficult to understand; abstruse; hard to conceptualize.
- Separately expressing a property or attribute of an object that is considered to be inherent to that object: attributive, ascriptive.
- Pertaining comprehensively to, or representing, a class or group of objects, as opposed to any specific object; considered apart from any application to a particular object: general, generic, nonspecific; representational.
- Absent-minded.
- Free from representational qualities, in particular the non-representational styles of the 20ᵗʰ century.
- Absolute.
Etymology
From Middle English abstract, borrowed from Latin abstractus, perfect passive participle of abstrahō (“draw away”), formed from abs- (“away”) + trahō (“to pull, draw”). The verbal sense is first attested in 1542.
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More English words
- Abstinentes
- abstinential
- abstinently
- abstort
- abstract algebra
- abstract analytic number theory
- abstract art
- abstract away from
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.