absent

Adjective

absent (comparative absenter, superlative absentest)

1. (not comparable) Being away from a place; withdrawn from a place; existing but not present; (sometimes) missing.
   • Owing to his own illness and then his family's, Ramzi has often been absent from class this month. We will help him catch up with his studies.
   • When they were able to return to the clinic some months later, certain pieces of equipment were absent.

   Antonyms:

   present

2. (not comparable) Not existing.
   • The body part was rudimentary or absent in 1% of specimens.
   • Empathy seemed to be absent from the messages.

   Antonyms:

   present, existing, extant

3. (comparable) Inattentive to what is passing; absent-minded; preoccupied.
   • Tom was there, but he seemed absent and withdrawn. Normally he is quite present [= engaged] during a meeting.
   • What is commonly called an absent man is commonly either a very weak or a very affected man.1746-1747, Chesterfield, Letters to his Son

   Antonyms:

   present

Noun

absent (plural absents)

1. (with-definite-article) Something absent, especially absent people collectively; those who were or are not there.
   • The Applause he met with exceeds all belief of the Absent.1772, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin 2001, 30 May
   • That very sense of longing, of yearning for the absent, which 'nostalgia' conveys to us now.1947, Cecil Day Lewis, Poetic Image
2. (Scotland, obsolete) An absentee; a person who is not there.

Preposition

absent

1. In the absence of; without; except.
   • Absent taxes modern governments cannot function.
   • If the accused refuse upon demand to pay money or deliver property (absent any excuse or excusing circumstance) which came into his hands as a bailee, such refusal might well constitute some evidence of conversion, with the requisite fraudulent intent required by the statute.1919, “State vs. Britt, Supreme Court of Missouri, Division 2”, in The Southwestern Reporter, page 427

Verb

UK/æbˈsɛnt/US/æbˈsɛnt/

absent (third-person singular simple present absents, present participle absenting, simple past and past participle absented)

1. (reflexive) To keep (oneself) away.
   • Most of the men are retired, jobless, or have otherwise temporarily absented themselves from the workplace.
   • Absent thee from felicity awhile, and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, to tell my story.ca. 1600, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
2. (archaic, transitive) To keep (someone) away.
   • Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more;1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, 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...
3. (intransitive, obsolete) Stay away; withdraw.
   • The iron rule of the plantation, always passionately and violently enforced in that neighborhood, makes flogging the penalty of failing to be in the field before sunrise in the morning, unless special permission be given to the absenting slave.1855, Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York; Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC
4. (rare, transitive) Leave.
5. (rare, transitive) To omit.
   • When we realize that the digitalisation of the image involves - by reducing and even absenting - the role of 'the physical', the 'sensuous' (by reducing and eventually absenting the indexical aspects of the image) […]2004, Paul Willemen, “Reflections on Eisenstein and Digital Imagery: Of Mice and Men”, in The Montage Principle, page 188
   • Such sequences draw attention to the affective appeals that environmental documentary typically makes, precisely by absenting those appeals.2018, Nicole Seymour, Bad Environmentalism, page 61