absolute
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈæb.sə.luːt/
ipa: /æb.səˈluːt/
ipa: /ˈæp-/
ipa: /ˈæb.sə.ljuːt/
ipa: /ˈap.sə.lʉwt/
ipa: /ˈab-/
ipa: /ˈæb.səˌlut/
ipa: /ˌæb.səˈlut/
ipa: /ˈabsə(ˌ)l(j)uːt/
ipa: /absəˈl(j)uːt/
ipa: /absəˈlɪʊ̯t/
note: Indic
ipa: /əbzəˈl(j)uʈ/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈabzəl(j)uʈ/
Forms: form: more absolute
form: absoluter
form: most absolute
form: absolutest
form: abs.
form: absolut
Etymology: First attested around 1380. From Middle English absolut, from Middle French absolut, from Latin absolūtus (“unconditional; unfettered; completed”), perfect passive participle of absolvō (“loosen, set free, complete”), from ab (“away”) + solvo (“to loose”). Influenced in part by Old French absolu. Compare absolve.
Senses: examples: ref: 1658, Samuel Hoard, God[']s Love to Mankind, Manifested, by disprooving his absolute decree for their damnation:
text: While Americans enjoy an almost absolute freedom to name their children whatever they please, in Germany the State (as public guardian of the good of the child) restricts parents [...]
ref: 2005, Names, volume 53, page 238:
glosses: Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.
examples: text: An absolute monarch is free from all forcible restraint, and so far as he is absolute[,] from all legal restraints of positive laws.
ref: 1846, George Gillespie, The Presbyterian's Armoury:
glosses: Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.
Unrestricted by laws, a constitution, or parliamentary or judicial or other checks; (legally) unlimited in power, especially if despotic.
examples: text: The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, / With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed.
ref: 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh:
text: […] the more absolute the ruler, the more absolute the revolution will be which replaces him.
ref: 1962, Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, published 1990, page 155:
glosses: Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.
Unrestricted by laws, a constitution, or parliamentary or judicial or other checks; (legally) unlimited in power, especially if despotic.
Characteristic of an absolutist ruler: domineering, peremptory.
examples: text: absolute purity, absolute liberty
text: So absolute she seems, / And in herself complete.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
ref: 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V:
glosses: Free from imperfection, perfect, complete; especially, perfectly embodying a quality in its essential characteristics or to its highest degree.
examples: text: absolute alcohol
glosses: Pure, free from mixture or adulteration; unmixed.
examples: text: an absolute denial of all charges
text: When caught, he told an absolute lie.
text: You're an absolute genius!
text: The growth and acceptance of this idea followed Amartya Sen's theory of exchange entitlements, which suggested that famines occur not from an absolute lack of food but from people's inability to obtain access to that food.
ref: 2008, Household Economy Approach, →ISBN, page 3:
glosses: Complete, utter, outright; unmitigated, not qualified or diminished in any way.
examples: text: Yet if the register is not to be absolute evidence of proprietorship, it is clear that some investigation of title would still be necessary.
ref: 1862, The Solicitors' Journal and Reporter, volume 6, page 365:
text: [...] and in the absence of other signs, or when these latter are inconclusive, it is extremely useful. But it is not, under any circumstances, absolute evidence of the syphilitic nature of a given symptom or set of symptoms.
ref: 1913, International Record of Medicine and General Practice Clinics:
text: Unless the determined lease to which the easements relate has been registered with title absolute and the easements have been entered without qualification in the register for that title, evidence must be lodged to prove [...]
ref: 2021, HM Land Registry Practice Guide 26:
qualifier: very occasionally postpositive
glosses: Positive, certain; unquestionable; not in doubt.
examples: text: I am absolute ’twas very Cloten.
ref: 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:
text: The colour of my hair—he cannot tell,
 Or answers "dark," at random,—while, be sure,
 He's absolute on the figure, live or ten,
 Of my last subscription.
ref: 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “(please specify either |book=1 to 9 or the page)”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC:
glosses: Certain; free from doubt or uncertainty (e.g. a person, opinion or prediction).
examples: text: the doctrine that absolute knowledge of things is possible; an absolute principle
text: Absolute rights and duties are such as pertain to man in a state of nature as contradistinguished from relative rights and duties, or such as pertain to him in his social relations.
topics: human-sciences
philosophy
sciences
glosses: Fundamental, ultimate, intrinsic; not relative; independent of references or relations to other things or standards.
examples: text: absolute velocity, absolute motion, absolute position
text: His experiments led him to infer that the boiling point of the substance is probably below 9 degrees absolute.
ref: 1903, Ice and Refrigeration, volume 24, page 49:
text: This new absolute temperature scale (also called the Kelvin scale) employs the SI unit of absolute temperature, the kelvin, […]
ref: 2015, Raymond A. Serway, John W. Jewett, Physics for Scientists and Engineers, →ISBN:
topics: natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: Independent of arbitrary units of measurement, standards, or properties; not comparative or relative.
topics: natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: Independent of arbitrary units of measurement, standards, or properties; not comparative or relative.
Having reference to or derived in the simplest manner from the fundamental units of mass, time, and length.
topics: natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: Independent of arbitrary units of measurement, standards, or properties; not comparative or relative.
Relating to the absolute temperature scale (based on absolute zero); kelvin.
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence; not in a syntactical relation with other parts of a text, or qualifying the text as a whole rather than any single word in it, like "it being over" in "it being over, she left".
Syntactically connected to the rest of the sentence in an atypical manner, or not relating to or depending on it, like in the nominative absolute or genitive absolute, accusative absolute or ablative absolute.
raw_tags: of a case form
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence; not in a syntactical relation with other parts of a text, or qualifying the text as a whole rather than any single word in it, like "it being over" in "it being over, she left".
Lacking a modified substantive, like "hungry" in "feed the hungry".
raw_tags: of an adjective or possessive pronoun
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence; not in a syntactical relation with other parts of a text, or qualifying the text as a whole rather than any single word in it, like "it being over" in "it being over, she left".
Expressing a relative term without a definite comparison, like "older" in "an older person should be treated with respect".
raw_tags: of a comparative or superlative
examples: text: Even when the absolute form of an adverb ends in -ly, the comparative and superlative are identical with the corresponding forms of the adjective: badly, worse, worst.
ref: 1991, English Grammar, 3rd edition:
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence; not in a syntactical relation with other parts of a text, or qualifying the text as a whole rather than any single word in it, like "it being over" in "it being over, she left".
Positive; not graded (not comparative or superlative).
raw_tags: of an adjective form
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence; not in a syntactical relation with other parts of a text, or qualifying the text as a whole rather than any single word in it, like "it being over" in "it being over, she left".
Having no direct object, like "kill" in "if looks could kill".
raw_tags: of a usually transitive verb
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence; not in a syntactical relation with other parts of a text, or qualifying the text as a whole rather than any single word in it, like "it being over" in "it being over, she left".
Being or pertaining to an inflected verb that is not preceded by any number of particles or compounded with a preverb.
antonyms: conjunct
raw_tags: of Celtic languages
examples: text: absolute deviation
text: absolute square
text: mean absolute difference
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: As measured using an absolute value.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: Indicating an expression that is true for all real numbers, or of all values of the variable; unconditional.
topics: education
glosses: Pertaining to a grading system based on the knowledge of the individual and not on the comparative knowledge of the group of students.
examples: text: absolute music
topics: art
arts
dance
dancing
entertainment
hobbies
lifestyle
music
sports
glosses: Independent of (references to) other arts; expressing things (beauty, ideas, etc) only in one art.
examples: text: A freehold property is an estate in fee simple absolute in possession.
topics: law
glosses: Indicating that a tenure or estate in land is not conditional or liable to terminate on (strictly) any occurrence or (sometimes contextually) certain kinds of occurrence.
glosses: Absolved; free.
Synonyms: sense: free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions
word: categorical
sense: free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions
word: unconditional
sense: free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions
word: unlimited
sense: free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions
word: unrestricted
sense: unlimited in power
word: autocratic
sense: unlimited in power
word: despotic
word: independent of references
word: relations to other things
word: standards
word: living
Derived terms: ablative absolute
absolute address
absolute advantage
absolute alcohol
absolute altimeter
absolute altitude
absolute assembler
absolute blocking
absolute ceiling
absolute cinema
absolute code
absolute comparative
absolute complement
absolute constant
absolute convergence
absolute curvature
absolute deviation
absolute differential calculus
absolute drought
absolute endorsement
absolute equation
absolute error
absolute fee simple
absolute form
absolute frequency
absolute geometry
absolute horizon
absolute humidity
absolute idea
absolute idealism
absolute immunity
absolute impediment
absolute instruction
absolute instrument
absolute loader
absolute magnitude
absolute majority
absolute mean
absolute monarch
absolute monarchy
absolute music
absolute of enfleurage
absolute path
absolute personal equation
absolute pin
absolute pitch
absolute pressure
absolute primogeniture
absolute privilege
absolute reality
absolute right
absolute scale
absolute skewer
absolute space
absolute space-time
absolute state
absolute superlative
absolute system
absolute temperature
absolute tense
absolute term
absolute territory
absolute threshold
absolute time
absolute unit
absolute uterine factor infertility
absolute uterine infertility
absolute value
absolute weight
absolute zero
absolutise
absolutism
absolutist
absolutistic
fee simple absolute in possession
mean absolute deviation
nonabsolute
subabsolute
superabsolute
term of years absolute
title absolute
unabsolute
Related terms: absolution
absoluteness
absolutize
absolutization