ABSTRACT

Definitions for the word, abstract

(a.) A powdered solid extract of a vegetable substance mixed with sugar of milk in such proportion that one part of the abstract represents two parts of the original substance.

(a.) A state of separation from other things; as, to consider a subject in the abstract, or apart from other associated things.

(a.) Abstracted; absent in mind.

(a.) An abstract term.

(a.) Considered apart from any application to a particular object; separated from matter; existing in the mind only; as, abstract truth, abstract numbers. Hence: ideal; abstruse; difficult.

(a.) Expressing a particular property of an object viewed apart from the other properties which constitute it; -- opposed to concrete; as, honesty is an abstract word.

(a.) Resulting from the mental faculty of abstraction; general as opposed to particular; as, \"reptile\" is an abstract or general name.

(a.) That which comprises or concentrates in itself the essential qualities of a larger thing or of several things. Specifically: A summary or an epitome, as of a treatise or book, or of a statement; a brief.

(a.) To draw off in respect to interest or attention; as, his was wholly abstracted by other objects.

(a.) To epitomize; to abridge.

(a.) To separate, as ideas, by the operation of the mind; to consider by itself; to contemplate separately, as a quality or attribute.

(a.) To separate, as the more volatile or soluble parts of a substance, by distillation or other chemical processes. In this sense extract is now more generally used.

(a.) To take secretly or dishonestly; to purloin; as, to abstract goods from a parcel, or money from a till.

(a.) To withdraw; to separate; to take away.

(a.) Withdraw; separate.

(v. t.) To perform the process of abstraction.