absolute

Adjective

absolute (comparative more absolute or absoluter, superlative most absolute or absolutest)

1. Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.
   • 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 [...]2005, Names, volume 53, page 238
   1. Unrestricted by laws, a constitution, or parliamentary or judicial or other checks; (legally) unlimited in power, especially if despotic.
      • An absolute monarch is free from all forcible restraint, and so far as he is absolute[,] from all legal restraints of positive laws.1846, George Gillespie, The Presbyterian's Armoury
   2. Characteristic of an absolutist ruler: domineering, peremptory.
      • The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, / With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed.1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh
      • […] the more absolute the ruler, the more absolute the revolution will be which replaces him.1962, Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, published 1990, page 155
2. Free from imperfection, perfect, complete; especially, perfectly embodying a quality in its essential characteristics or to its highest degree.
   • absolute purity, absolute liberty
   • So absolute she seems, / And in herself complete.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...
3. Pure, free from mixture or adulteration; unmixed.
   • absolute alcohol
4. Complete, utter, outright; unmitigated, not qualified or diminished in any way.
   • an absolute denial of all charges
   • When caught, he told an absolute lie.
5. (very occasionally postpositive) Positive, certain; unquestionable; not in doubt.
   • Yet if the register is not to be absolute evidence of proprietorship, it is clear that some investigation of title would still be necessary.1862, The Solicitors' Journal and Reporter, volume 6, page 365
   • [...] 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.1913, International Record of Medicine and General Practice Clinics
6. (archaic) Certain; free from doubt or uncertainty (e.g. a person, opinion or prediction).
   • I am absolute ’twas very Cloten.1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
   • 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.1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “(please specify either |book=1 to 9 or the page)”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC
7. (especially) Fundamental, ultimate, intrinsic; not relative; independent of references or relations to other things or standards.
   • the doctrine that absolute knowledge of things is possible; an absolute principle
   • 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.
8. Independent of arbitrary units of measurement, standards, or properties; not comparative or relative.
   • absolute velocity, absolute motion, absolute position
   • His experiments led him to infer that the boiling point of the substance is probably below 9 degrees absolute.1903, Ice and Refrigeration, volume 24, page 49
   1. Having reference to or derived in the simplest manner from the fundamental units of mass, time, and length.
   2. Relating to the absolute temperature scale (based on absolute zero); kelvin.
9. 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.
10. Lacking a modified substantive, like "hungry" in "feed the hungry".
11. Expressing a relative term without a definite comparison, like "older" in "an older person should be treated with respect".
12. Positive; not graded (not comparative or superlative).
    • 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.1991, English Grammar, 3rd edition

Noun (1)

absolute (plural absolutes)

1. That which exists (or has a certain property, nature, size, etc) independent of references to other standards or external conditions; that which is universally valid; that which is not relative, conditional, qualified or mitigated.
   • moral absolutes
   • There is a well-known generalization that human rights come before property rights. […] Unqualified absolutes like these do not contain the truth as tested by human experience. What we do say is that human rights and property rights are related to one another, are intertwined with one another, work...1944, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, World Freedom of Press and Radio, Editorials Submitted...: Senate Concurrent Resolution 50, Senate Concurrent Resolution 52, Senate Concurrent...
2. In a plane, the two imaginary circular points at infinity; in space of three dimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.
3. (capitalized, usually, usually preceded by "the") A realm which exists without reference to anything else; that which can be imagined purely by itself; absolute ego.
   • Withdrawn as a Buddha he sat, watching the alien world from his perch in the absolute.1983, Lawrence Durrell, Sebastian (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 1039
4. (capitalized, usually, usually preceded by "the") The whole of reality; the totality to which everything is reduced; the unity of spirit and nature; God.
5. A concentrated natural flower oil, used for perfumes; an alcoholic extract of a concrete.
   • Complete concentration in a vacuum still at low temperature results in a concentrated flower oil, free from alcohol, the so-called absolute of enfleurage. The crude absolutes of enfleurage are usually of dark color and, because of their fat content, […]1948, Ernest Guenther, The Essential Oils: History, origin in plants, production, analysis
   • The main difference between these and those of indifferent quality is that the former contain flower absolutes in fairly large proportion and the latter either an insignificant quantity or […]2019, William A. Poucher, Perfumes, Cosmetics and Soaps: The Production, Manufacture and Application of Perfumes: Volume 2, →ISBN, page 57

Noun (2) capitalized: Absolute

UK/ˈæb.səˌluːt/US/ˈæb.səˌlut/

Absolute (plural Absolutes)

1. That which is totally unconditioned, unrestricted, pure, perfect, or complete; that which can be thought of without relation to others.