Abstract

Abstract

–adjective

1. thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances: an abstract idea.

2. expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance, as justice, poverty,  and speed.

3. theoretical; not applied or practical: abstract science.

4. difficult to understand; abstruse: abstract speculations.

5. Fine Arts .

    a. of or pertaining to the formal aspect of art, emphasizing lines, colors, generalized or geometrical 

   b. ( often initial capital letter ) pertaining to the nonrepresentational art styles of the 20th century.

–noun

6. a summary of a text, scientific article, document, speech, etc.; epitome.

7. something that concentrates in itself the essential qualities of anything more extensive or more general, or of several things; essence.

8. an idea or term considered apart from some material basis or object.

9. an abstract work of art.

–verb (used with object)

10. to draw or take away; remove.

11. to divert or draw away the attention of.

12. to steal.

13. to consider as a general quality or characteristic apart from specific objects or instances: to abstract the notions of time, space, and matter.

14. to make an abstract of; summarize

 

Samples:

abstract ideas such as love and hate

“Honesty” is an abstract word.

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

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.