abstract

1 of 3

adjective

ab·​stract ab-ˈstrakt  ˈab-ˌstrakt 

1

a

: disassociated from any specific instance

an abstract entity

b

: difficult to understand : abstruse

abstract problems

c

: insufficiently factual : formal

possessed only an abstract right

2

: expressing a quality apart from an object

the word poem is concrete, poetry is abstract

3

a

: dealing with a subject in its abstract aspects : theoretical

abstract science

b

: impersonal, detached

the abstract compassion of a surgeon

—Time

4

: having only intrinsic form with little or no attempt at pictorial representation or narrative content

abstract painting

abstractly

ab-ˈstrak(t)-lē 

ˈab-ˌstrak(t)-

adverb

abstractness

ab-ˈstrak(t)-nəs 

ˈab-ˌstrak(t)-

noun

abstract

2 of 3

noun

ab·​stract ˈab-ˌstrakt 

in sense 2 also

ab-ˈstrakt 

1

: a summary of points (as of a writing) usually presented in skeletal form

also : something that summarizes or concentrates the essentials of a larger thing or several things

2

: an abstract thing or state (see abstract entry 1)

3

: abstraction sense 4a

abstract

3 of 3

verb

ab·​stract ab-ˈstrakt  ˈab-ˌstrakt 

in sense 3 usually

ˈab-ˌstrakt 

abstracted; abstracting; abstracts

transitive verb

1

: to make a summary or abstract of : summarize

abstract an academic paper

2

: to draw away the attention of

His imagination had so abstracted him that his name was called twice before he answered.

—James Joyce

3

: steal, purloin

She abstracted important documents from the safe.

4

: remove, separate

5

: to consider apart from application to or association with a particular instance

intransitive verb

: to make an abstraction

abstractable

ab-ˈstrak-tə-bəl 

ˈab-ˌstrak-

adjective

abstractor noun

or abstracter

ab-ˈstrak-tər 

ˈab-ˌstrak-

Did you know?

The Crisscrossing Histories of Abstract and Extract

Abstract is most frequently used as an adjective (“abstract ideas”) and a noun (“an abstract of the article”), but its somewhat less common use as a verb in English helps to clarify its Latin roots. The verb abstract is used to mean “summarize,” as in “abstracting an academic paper.” This meaning is a figurative derivative of the verb’s meanings “to remove” or “to separate.”

We trace the origins of abstract to the combination of the Latin roots ab-, a prefix meaning “from” or “away,” with the verb trahere, meaning “to pull” or “to draw.” The result was the Latin verb abstrahere, which meant “to remove forcibly” or “to drag away.” Its past participle abstractus had the meanings “removed,” “secluded,” “incorporeal,” and, ultimately, “summarized,” meanings which came to English from Medieval Latin.

Interestingly, the word passed from Latin into French with competing spellings as both abstract (closer to the Latin) and abstrait (which reflected the French form of abstrahere, abstraire), the spelling retained in modern French.

The idea of “removing” or “pulling away” connects abstract to extract, which stems from Latin through the combination of trahere with the prefix ex-, meaning “out of” or “away from.” Extract forms a kind of mirror image of abstract: more common as a verb, but also used as a noun and adjective. The adjective, meaning “derived or descended,” is now obsolete, as is a sense of the noun that overlapped with abstract, “summary.” The words intersected and have separated in modern English, but it’s easy to see that abstract applies to something that has been summarized, and summarized means “extracted from a larger work.”

Synonyms

Adjective

• conceptual
• ideal
• ideational
• metaphysical
• notional
• theoretical
• theoretic

Noun

• breviary
• brief
• capsule
• conspectus
• digest
• encapsulation
• epitome
• inventory
• outline
• précis
• recap
• recapitulation
• résumé
• resume
• resumé
• roundup
• run-through
• rundown
• sum
• sum-up
• summa
• summarization
• summary
• summing-up
• synopsis
• wrap-up

Verb

• call off
• detract
• distract
• divert
• throw off

Examples of abstract in a Sentence

Adjective

It is true that the atrocities that were known remained abstract and remote, rarely acquiring the status of knee-buckling knowledge among ordinary Americans. Because the savagery of genocide so defies our everyday experience, many of us failed to wrap our minds around it. —Samantha Power, New York Times Book Review, 14 Mar. 2002

A glance into the classrooms of the Los Angeles public school system … fleshes out the abstract debates with the faces of children. —Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, 1997

I take my photographs and print them on a laser copying machine in the "photo" mode; the resulting image is more stark and abstract than a traditional photographic print, which tends to dominate the page regardless of the text. —Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit, 1996

abstract ideas such as love and hate

“Honesty” is an abstract word.

The word “poem” is concrete, the word “poetry” is abstract.

Noun

an artist admired for his abstracts

the scientist wrote a bare-bones abstract of his research and conclusions

Verb

… artists in the group put the emphasis on geometric abstraction rather than images abstracted from nature. —Robert Atkins, Art Spoke, 1993

… the Romantic project was to abstract from religion its essential "feeling" and leave contemptuously behind its traditional formulations. —Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture, 1969

… conscientiously and with great purity made the uncompromising effort to abstract his view of life into an art work … —Norman Mailer, Advertisements for Myself, 1959

… basic esthetic criteria and standards he has abstracted from long intimacy with time-tested masterpieces. —Aline B. Saarinen, New York Times Book Review, 7 Nov. 1954

Data for the study was abstracted from hospital records.

personal problems abstracted him so persistently that he struggled to keep his mind on his work

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

Before cuneiform, however, there was an archaic script using abstract pictographic signs called proto-cuneiform. —Ashley Strickland, CNN, 5 Nov. 2024

The artist born in 1988 is known for her large-format, abstract charcoal drawings. —The Editors Of Artnews, ARTnews.com, 5 Nov. 2024

Noun

Amaral’s large-scale abstract works free themselves from the wall and refuse any form of categorization. —Lee Sharrock, Forbes, 29 Oct. 2024

Everything from cheeky sayings to watercolor florals, nature scenes, and abstracts can be had for as little as $20, so your gallery wall is limitless. —Julia Harrison, Architectural Digest, 28 Oct. 2024

Verb

While there may be dozens in each major market, this complexity will be abstracted away for users. —Christian Catalini, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2024

Even abstracting from this important matter, his promises would add to the river of red ink. —Milton Ezrati, Forbes, 24 Oct. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Adjective

Middle English, "withdrawn, removed, abstruse, extracted from a longer work, (of nouns in grammar) not concrete," borrowed from Medieval Latin abstractus "removed, secluded, incorporeal, universal, extracted from a larger work, summarized," going back to Latin, past participle of abstrahere "to remove forcibly, turn aside, divert," from abs- (variant of ab- ab- before c- and t-) + trahere "to drag, draw, take along," of uncertain origin

Note: The etymology of trahere beyond Latin is problematic. It would require a verbal base *treg^h-, a shape that is not allowable by Indo-European root structure constraints (voiceless stops cannot co-occur with voiced aspirated stops, though there may be exceptions if a sonorant is interposed). However, aside from loans and expressive formations, Latin words do not begin with dr-, so it is conceivable that initial dr- in an inherited root could have shifted to tr-. The verb trahere then invites comparison with Germanic *dragan- "to draw, pull" (see draw entry 1), virtually identical in meaning, though this presupposes a further change, since *dragan- must descend from Indo-European *d^hrog^h-. Thus *d^hrag^heti > *drag^heti (by dissimulation of the first aspirate) > trahit (3rd person singular present tense). (See M. Weiss, Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin, 2nd edition [Ann Arbor, 2020], pp. 169, 176.) Alternatively, trahere has been compared with Old Irish tethraig "ebbed, receded," with nominal correspondents tráig "beach, shore," Middle Welsh trei "ebb, draining," all presupposing a root *treHg^h- or *trag^h-. (See S. Schumacher, Die keltischen Primärverben [Innsbruck, 2004], pp. 635-36; his hypothesis is seconded by M. de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages [Leiden, 2008].) M. Weis, on the other hand, would assign this etymon to *treg^h- "run" (whence Old English þrǣgan "to run," Gothic biþragjan)—see "Limited Latin Grassmann's Law: Do We Need It?," Vina Diem Celebrent: Studies in Linguistics and Philology in Honor of Brent Vine (Ann Arbor, 2018), pp. 438-47. See further P. Schrijver, The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Latin (Amsterdam, 1991), pp. 188-89, where an attempt is made to explain the a of trahere by the assumption of a laryngeal in the root.

Noun

Middle English, derivative of abstract abstract entry 1 (or borrowed directly from Medieval Latin abstractus)

Verb

Middle English abstracten "to draw away, remove," derivative of abstract abstract entry 1 (or borrowed directly from Latin abstractus)

First Known Use

Adjective

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Noun

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Verb

15th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 4

Phrases Containing abstract

• abstract algebra
• abstract expressionism
• abstract of title
• in the abstract

Kids Definition

abstract

1 of 3 adjective

ab·​stract ab-ˈstrakt  ˈab-ˌstrakt 

1

: expressing a quality or idea without reference to an actual person or thing

"honesty" is an abstract word

2

: difficult to understand : hard

abstract problems

3

: using elements of form (as color, line, or texture) with little or no attempt at creating a realistic picture

abstract art

abstractly

ab-ˈstrak-(t)lē 

ˈab-ˌstrak-

adverb

abstractness

ab-ˈstrak(t)-nəs 

ˈab-ˌstrak(t)-

noun

abstract

2 of 3 noun

ab·​stract ˈab-ˌstrakt 

: a brief statement of the main points or facts : summary

abstract

3 of 3 verb

ab·​stract ab-ˈstrakt  ˈab-ˌstrakt 

 in sense 3 usually  ˈab-ˌstrakt

1

: to take out : remove

abstract a diamond from a pile of sand

2

: to consider apart from a particular instance

abstract the idea of roundness from a ball

3

: to make an abstract of : summarize

4

: to draw away the attention of

abstractor noun

or abstracter

-ˈstrak-tər 

-ˌstrak-

Etymology

Adjective

from Latin abstractus "abstract," from earlier abstrahere "to draw away," from abs-, ab- "from, away" and trahere "to draw" — related to attract, trace entry 1, trace entry 3

Medical Definition

abstract

1 of 2 noun

ab·​stract ˈab-ˌstrakt 

1

: a written summary of the key points especially of a scientific paper

2

: a pharmaceutical preparation made by mixing a powdered solid extract of a vegetable substance with lactose in such proportions that one part of the final product represents two parts of the original drug from which the extract was made

abstract

2 of 2 transitive verb

ab·​stract ˈab-ˌstrakt  ab-ˈ 

: to make an abstract of

abstractor noun

or abstracter

-tər 

Legal Definition

abstract

noun

ab·​stract ˈab-ˌstrakt 

1

: a summary of a legal document

2

: abstract of title

abstract

ab-ˈstrakt, ˈab-ˌstrakt 

transitive verb