abstract
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈæbˌstɹækt/
ipa: /ˌæbˈstɹækt/
ipa: /əbˈstɹækt/
ipa: /ˈæbˌstɹækt/
Forms: form: more abstract
form: abstracter
form: most abstract
form: abstractest
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.
Senses: glosses: Derived; extracted.
examples: text: The more abstract we are from the body ... the more fit we shall be to behold divine light.
ref: 17th century, John Norris (philosopher), The Oxford Dictionary
glosses: Drawn away; removed from; apart from; separate.
examples: text: Her new film is an abstract piece, combining elements of magic realism, flashbacks, and animation but with very little in terms of plot construction.
synonyms: conceptual
ideal
imaginary
incorporeal
intangible
nonempirical
theoretical
antonyms: actual
concrete
corporeal
empirical
glosses: Not concrete: conceptual, ideal.
synonyms: conceptual
ideal
imaginary
incorporeal
intangible
nonempirical
theoretical
formal
antonyms: actual
concrete
corporeal
empirical
glosses: Not concrete: conceptual, ideal.
Insufficiently factual.
examples: text: During the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, this commitment brought him into frequent critical confrontation with entrenched forms of conservative thinking (in academic areas from history and social science to the more abstract domains of ethical and political philosophy),[…]
ref: 1999, Nicholas Walker, “The Reorientation of Critical Theory: Habermas”, in Simon Glemdinning, editor, The Edinburgh Encyclopedia of Continental Philosophy, Routledge, →ISBN, page 489:
synonyms: conceptual
ideal
imaginary
incorporeal
intangible
nonempirical
theoretical
conceptual
theoretical
antonyms: actual
concrete
corporeal
empirical
applied
practical
glosses: Not concrete: conceptual, ideal.
Apart from practice or reality; vague; theoretical; impersonal; not applied.
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
synonyms: conceptual
ideal
imaginary
incorporeal
intangible
nonempirical
theoretical
antonyms: actual
concrete
corporeal
empirical
glosses: Not concrete: conceptual, ideal.
As a noun, denoting a concept or intangible as opposed to an object, place, or person.
examples: text: The politician gave a somewhat abstract answer when asked about their plans to cut spending.
text: Abstract words such as glory, honour, courage, or hallow were obscene.
ref: 1929, Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms:
synonyms: abstruse
glosses: Difficult to understand; abstruse; hard to conceptualize.
examples: text: A concrete name is a name which stands for a thing; an abstract name which stands for an attribute of a thing...
ref: 1843, John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, volume 1, page 34:
synonyms: attributive
ascriptive
glosses: Separately expressing a property or attribute of an object that is considered to be inherent to that object: attributive, ascriptive.
examples: text: A concrete name is a name which stands for a thing; an abstract name which stands for an attribute of a thing.[…]A practice, however, has grown up in more modern times, which, if not introduced by Locke, has gained currency from his example, of applying the expression "abstract name" to all names which are the result of abstraction and generalization, and consequently to all general names, instead of confining it to the names of attributes.
ref: 1843, John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, volume 1, page 34:
text: Given their opposition to innate ideas, philosophers in the empiricist tradition have sought to explain how the rich and multifarious representational capacities that human beings possess derive from experience. A key explanatory strategy in this tradition, tracing back at least as far as John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, is to maintain that the acquisition of many of these capacities can be accounted for by a process of abstraction. In fact, Locke himself claims in the Essay that abstraction is the source of all general ideas (1690/1975, II, xii, §1). Although Berkeley and Hume were highly critical of Locke, abstraction as a source of generality has been a lasting theme in empiricist thought.
ref: 2012, Laurence, Stephen and Margolis, Eric, Abstraction and the Origin of General Ideas, Philosophers' Imprint volume 12, no. 19, December 2012
synonyms: general
generalized
generic
nonspecific
representational
antonyms: discrete
specific
particular
precise
glosses: 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.
examples: text: Abſtract as in a tranſe methought I ſaw,
abstract, as in a trance
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, 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, line 1099:
text: White and abstract-looking, he sat and ate his dinner.
ref: 1922, D. H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod:
glosses: Absent-minded.
examples: text: But his design is wonderful. He’s getting more and more abstract every day. He’d given up the third dimension when I was there and was just thinking of giving up the second. Soon, he says, there’ll be just the blank canvas. That’s the logical conclusion. Complete abstraction.
ref: 1921, Aldous Huxley, chapter 12, in Crome Yellow, London: Chatto & Windus:
topics: art
arts
glosses: Pertaining to the formal aspect of art, such as the lines, colors, shapes, and the relationships among them.
Free from representational qualities, in particular the non-representational styles of the 20ᵗʰ century.
topics: art
arts
entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: Pertaining to the formal aspect of art, such as the lines, colors, shapes, and the relationships among them.
Absolute.
topics: art
arts
dance
dancing
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: Pertaining to the formal aspect of art, such as the lines, colors, shapes, and the relationships among them.
Lacking a story.
qualifier: object-oriented programming
glosses: Being a partial basis for subclasses rather than a complete template for objects.
raw_tags: of a class
Derived terms: abstract algebra
abstract analytic number theory
abstract art
abstract class
abstract data type
abstract expressionism
abstract expressionist
abstract factory class
abstract factory pattern
abstract harmonic analysis
abstract idea
abstractification
abstractify
abstractization
abstractize
abstract language
abstractly
abstract method
abstract model
abstract music
abstractness
abstract nonsense
abstract noun
abstract number
abstract numbers
abstract polytope
abstract publication
abstract term
abstract terms
abstract type
abstract universal
abstract verb
autoabstract
in the abstract
microabstract
nonabstract
overabstract
reabstract
semiabstract
superabstract
typestract
unabstract
Related terms: reify