Word.ws English Dictionary

abstract

/ˈæbˌstɹækt/US/ˌæbˈstɹækt/

abstract noun: an abridgement or summary of a longer publication.

Noun

abstract (plural abstracts)

  1. An abridgement or summary of a longer publication.
    • An analysis and abstract of every treatise he had read.1741, I[saac] Watts, The Improvement of the Mind: Or, A Supplement to the Art of Logick: […], London: […] James Brackstone, […], →OCLC
  2. Something that concentrates in itself the qualities of a larger item, or multiple items.
    • Man, the abstract Of all perfection, which the workmanship Of Heaven hath modeled.1628, John Ford, The Lover's Melancholy
    1. Concentrated essence of a product.
    2. A powdered solid extract of a medicinal substance mixed with lactose.
  3. An abstraction; an abstract term; that which is abstract.
    • Thus the concrete like has its abstract likeness; the concretes, father and son, have the abstracts, paternity and filiation.1843, John Stuart Mill, chapter II, in A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. […], volume...
  4. The theoretical way of looking at things; something that exists only in idealized form.
  5. An abstract work of art.
  6. A summary title of the key points detailing a tract of land, for ownership; abstract of title.

Adjective

abstract (comparative more abstract or abstracter, superlative most abstract or abstractest)

  1. (obsolete) Derived; extracted.
  2. (archaic) Drawn away; removed from; apart from; separate.
    • The more abstract we are from the body ... the more fit we shall be to behold divine light.17th century, John Norris (philosopher), The Oxford Dictionary
  3. Not concrete: conceptual, ideal.
    • Her new film is an abstract piece, combining elements of magic realism, flashbacks, and animation but with very little in terms of plot construction.
    1. Insufficiently factual.
    2. Apart from practice or reality; vague; theoretical; impersonal; not applied.
      • 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),[…]1999, Nicholas Walker, “The Reorientation of Critical Theory: Habermas”, in Simon Glemdinning, editor, The Edinburgh Encyclopedia of Continental Philosophy, Routledge, →ISBN, page 489
    3. As a noun, denoting a concept or intangible as opposed to an object, place, or person.
  4. Difficult to understand; abstruse; hard to conceptualize.
    • The politician gave a somewhat abstract answer when asked about their plans to cut spending.
    • Abstract words such as glory, honour, courage, or hallow were obscene.1929, Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
    Synonyms:
    abstruse
  5. Separately expressing a property or attribute of an object that is considered to be inherent to that object: attributive, ascriptive.
    • A concrete name is a name which stands for a thing; an abstract name which stands for an attribute of a thing...1843, John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, volume 1, page 34
  6. 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.
    • 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...1843, John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, volume 1, page 34
    • 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...2012, Laurence, Stephen and Margolis, Eric, Abstraction and the Origin of General Ideas, Philosophers' Imprint volume 12, no. 19, December 2012
  7. (archaic) Absent-minded.
    • Abſtract as in a tranſe methought I ſaw,
      abstract, as in a trance1667, 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...
    • White and abstract-looking, he sat and ate his dinner.1922, D. H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod
  8. (capitalized, often) Free from representational qualities, in particular the non-representational styles of the 20ᵗʰ century.
    • 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.1921, Aldous Huxley, chapter 12, in Crome Yellow, London: Chatto & Windus
  9. Absolute.
  10. Lacking a story.
  11. (object-oriented programming) Being a partial basis for subclasses rather than a complete template for objects.

Verb

abstract (third-person singular simple present abstracts, present participle abstracting, simple past and past participle abstracted)

  1. (transitive) To separate; to disengage.
    • He was incapable of forming any opinion or resolution abstracted from his own prejudices.1822, [Walter Scott], Peveril of the Peak. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC
    1. (transitive) To remove; to take away; withdraw.
      • The lightning of the public burdens, which at present abstract a large proportion of profits and wages.1834, Harriet Martineau, Illustration of Political Economy, volume IX
    2. (euphemistic, transitive) To steal; to take away; to remove without permission.
      • Von Rosen had quietly abstracted the bearing-reins from the harness.1872, William Black, The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton
      • The inlaid characters in diamond, and other precious stones, have been all abstracted away by the pelf-loving Jaut and Mahratta—leaving the walls defaced with the hollow marks of the chisel.1869, Bholanauth Chunder, The Travels of a Hindoo to Various Parts of Bengal and Upper India
    3. (obsolete, transitive) To extract by means of distillation.
      • Poison from roses who could e'er abstract?1601, John Marston, Antonio's Revenge, act II, scene I
    4. (transitive) To draw off (interest or attention).
      • The young stranger had been abstracted and silent.June 1869, William Blackwood, Late for the Train (published in Blackwood's Magazine)
      • He was wholly abstracted by other objects.
    5. (figuratively, intransitive, literally, reflexive, transitive) To withdraw oneself; to retire.
    6. (transitive) To consider abstractly; to contemplate separately or by itself; to consider theoretically; to look at as a general quality.
      • To abstract the notions of time, of space, and of matter.1781, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume II
    7. (transitive) To conceptualize an ideal subgroup by means of the generalization of an attribute, as follows: by apprehending an attribute inherent to one individual, then separating that attribute and contemplating it by itself, then conceiving of that attribute as a general quality, then despecifying that conceived quality with respect to several or many individuals, and by then ideating a group composed of those individuals perceived to possess said quality.
    8. (intransitive, rare, transitive) To perform the process of abstraction.
      • I own myself able to abstract in one sense.1710, George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
    9. (intransitive, transitive, fine arts) To create abstractions.
    10. (intransitive, transitive) To produce an abstraction, usually by refactoring existing code. Generally used with “out”.
      • He abstracted out the square root function.
  2. (transitive) To summarize; to abridge; to epitomize.

abstract meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

abstract in Hindi

something that concentrates in itself the qualities of something else
निचोड nicoḍ
an abridgement or summary
सारांश sārāñś, निचोड nicoḍ
an extract of a vegetable substance
निचोड nicoḍ
an abstraction
अमूर्त amūrt

abstract in Tamil

அப்பூதி, சுருக்கம், எண்ணக்கரு, நுண்மம், நுண், நுண்புலம்

abstract in Marathi

an abridgement or summary
सारांश sārāuśa, गोषवारा goṣvārā
an extract of a vegetable substance
सत्त्व sattva
an abstraction
अमूर्त amūrta
that which is abstract
अमूर्त amūrta

abstract in Urdu

abstract, derivate
اخذ کرنا aḵz karnā
More languagesFewer languages
abstract in Bengali
সারাংশ, সংক্ষিপ্তসার, বিমূর্ত, অবাস্তব
abstract in Malayalam
അമൂർത്ത amūṟtta
abstract in Kannada
ತಿರುಳು, ಸಾರಾಂಶ, ತಾತ್ಪರ್ಯ
abstract in Punjabi
ਸੂਖਮ sūkham
abstract in Gujarati
અમૂર્ત amūrt
abstract in Sanskrit
विषयविविक्त viṣayavivikta
abstract in Tagalog
basal
abstract in Arabic
مُلَخَّص mulaḵḵaṣ, حاصِل ḥāṣil, مَعْنَوِيّ maʕnawiyy, تَجْرِيدِيّ tajrīdiyy
abstract in Malay
abstrak, niskala
abstract in Indonesian
abstrak, sari, mengabstrakkan, ikhtisar
abstract in Persian
انتزاع, انتزاعی, انتزاعیدن
abstract in Thai
บทคัดย่อ, นาม naam
abstract in Vietnamese
trừu tượng

Examples of abstract in a sentence

  • In fact, Locke himself claims in the Essay that abstraction is the source of all general ideas (1690/1975, II, xii, §1).2012, Laurence, Stephen and Margolis, Eric, Abstraction and the Origin of General Ideas, Philosophers' Imprint volume 12, no. 19, December...
  • Section 13 of the 1968 Act enacts a separate offence of dishonestly abstracting electricity.2014, A P Simester, J R Spencer, G R Sullivan, Simester and Sullivan's Criminal Law: Theory and Doctrine:

All 40 example sentences with abstract

Synonyms of abstract

20 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of abstract

Forms of abstract

Noun
pluralabstracts
Adjective
comparativemore abstract
comparativeabstracter
superlativemost abstract
superlativeabstractest
Verb
third-person singular presentabstracts
present participleabstracting
past participleabstracted
pastabstracted
second-person singular present (archaic)abstractest
second-person singular past (archaic)abstractedst
third-person singular present (archaic)abstracteth

Past tense of abstract: abstracted

Plural of abstract: abstracts

Origin of abstract

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.

Words formed from abstract

Phrases with abstract

3 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with abstract

23 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about abstract

What does abstract mean?
Abstract means an abridgement or summary of a longer publication.
What is abstract in Hindi?
Abstract in Hindi is निचोड (nicoḍ), अमूर्त (amūrt), सारांश (sārāñś). See Abstract meaning in Hindi.
How do you use abstract in a sentence?
In fact, Locke himself claims in the Essay that abstraction is the source of all general ideas (1690/1975, II, xii, §1).
What part of speech is abstract?
Abstract can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce abstract?
Abstract is pronounced /ˈæbˌstɹækt/ (UK).
What is the plural of abstract?
The plural of abstract is abstracts.

Words near abstract in the dictionary

  1. abstort
  2. abstorted
  3. abstorting
  4. abstorts
  5. abstr.
  6. abstract
  7. abstract algebra
  8. abstract analytic number theory
  9. abstract art
  10. abstract away from
  11. abstract class

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: abstract (page history and authors); abstract (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); اخذ کرنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); abstract (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abstract (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਸੂਖਮ (Punjabi) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “abstract.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/abstract. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.