abstract

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.

noun

1. An abridgement or summary of a longer publication.
2. Something that concentrates in itself the qualities of a larger item, or multiple items.
   1. Concentrated essence of a product.
   2. (medicine) A powdered solid extract of a medicinal substance mixed with lactose.
3. An abstraction; an abstract term; that which is abstract.
4. The theoretical way of looking at things; something that exists only in idealized form.
5. (art) An abstract work of art.
6. (real estate) A summary title of the key points detailing a tract of land, for ownership; abstract of title.

adj

1. (obsolete) Derived; extracted.
2. (now rare) 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.
   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, page 489
   3. (grammar) 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
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 which are the result of abstraction and generalization, and consequently to all general names, instead of confining it to the names of attributes. 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 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. 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.
   White and abstract-looking, he sat and ate his dinner. 1922, D. H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod
8. (art) Pertaining to the formal aspect of art, such as the lines, colors, shapes, and the relationships among them.
   1. (art, often capitalized) Free from representational qualities, in particular the non-representational styles of the 20ᵗʰ century.
   2. (music) Absolute.
   3. (dance) Lacking a story.
9. (object-oriented programming, of a class) Being a partial basis for subclasses rather than a complete template for objects.

verb

1. (transitive) To separate; to disengage.
   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. (transitive, euphemistic) 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
      Section 13 of the 1968 Act enacts a separate offence of dishonestly abstracting electricity. The separate offence is needed because electricity, like other forms of energy such as heat, is not property. 2014, A P Simester, J R Spencer, G R Sullivan, Simester and Sullivan's Criminal Law: Theory and Doctrine
   3. (transitive, obsolete) 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. (intransitive, reflexive, literally, figurative) 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.
      1. 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.
      2. (intransitive, rare) 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
      3. (intransitive, fine arts) To create abstractions.
      4. (intransitive, computing) 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.