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 adverb
abstractness noun
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
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
5
: to consider apart from application to or association with a particular instance
abstractable adjective
abstractor noun

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.”

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
Recent Examples on the Web
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Adjective
Art and math both explore abstract descriptions of the world, and so seeing great art and science pick out the same essential features of trees is satisfying beyond what art or science could accomplish alone. Mitchell Newberry, The Conversation, 11 Feb. 2025 Exhibitions include a two-day event with local Black artists at the Park Shelton and a showing of abstract work by artist Anita Sewell every Wednesday–Sunday. Annalise Frank, Axios, 10 Feb. 2025
Noun
In the past, the agency has also kept open PubMed, which holds biomedical research abstracts needed for health care, and the ClinicalTrials.gov registry, where reporting of clinical studies is a legal requirement. Bydavid Malakoff, science.org, 19 Dec. 2024 The unwelcome advances all targeted one of the journals Barreto Segundo managed, The Journal of Physiotherapy Research, soon after it was indexed in Scopus, a database of abstracts and citations owned by the publisher Elsevier. Guillaume Cabanac, The Conversation, 29 Jan. 2025
Verb
Oracle seems to truly understand this and, as a company, has invested a lot in abstracting both complex and mundane tasks away from IT staffers through automation. Matt Kimball, Forbes, 15 Jan. 2025 Nonetheless, when abstracted from Ancient Rome, several of his maneuvers can teach contemporary entrepreneurs some great lessons. Ted Ladd, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2025 See all Example Sentences for abstract 

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 *tregh-, 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 *dhrogh-. Thus *dhragheti > *dragheti (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 *treHgh- or *tragh-. (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 *tregh- "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

Time Traveler
The first known use of abstract was in the 14th century

Dictionary Entries Near abstract

Cite this Entry

“Abstract.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abstract. Accessed 18 Feb. 2025.

Kids Definition

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
abstractness noun

abstract

2 of 3 noun
: a brief statement of the main points or facts : summary

abstract

3 of 3 verb
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
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
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
: to make an abstract of
abstractor noun

Legal Definition

1
: a summary of a legal document
2

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