Meaning of abstract in English

abstract

adjective

/ˈæb.strækt/ us

/ˈæb.strækt/

abstract adjective (GENERAL)

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existing as an idea, feeling, or quality, not as a material object:

Truth and beauty are abstract concepts.

Opposite

concrete

An abstract argument or discussion is general and not based on particular examples:

This debate is becoming too abstract - let's have some hard facts!

Opposite

concrete

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

abstract ideas

abstractHappiness, faith, and confidence are abstract qualities.
conceptualThe introduction lays out a conceptual framework for the book.
notionalThere is a notional improvement in air quality that cannot be demonstrated.
theoreticalVitamin supplements can give a theoretical boost to health.

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the abstract

general ideas:

in the abstract So far we've only discussed the question in the abstract (= without referring to any real examples).

I have difficulty dealing with the abstract - let's discuss particular cases.

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It is sometimes easier to illustrate an abstract concept by analogy with something concrete.
He is good at explaining quite complex, abstract ideas in a nice simple way.
Your idea is rather vague and abstract - could you explain it in a bit more detail, please?
These early humans were clearly capable of abstract thought, and probably language too.
Some of these new theories are so abstract that they don't seem to relate to our everyday work at all.

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Ideas, concepts and theories

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General

abstract adjective (ART)

used to refer to a type of painting, drawing, or sculpture that uses shapes, lines, and colour in a way that does not try to represent the appearance of people or things:

abstract art

an abstract painter

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Art history & artistic movements

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abstract

noun [ C ]

/ˈæb.strækt/ us

/ˈæb.strækt/

abstract noun [C] (SHORT DOCUMENT)

a short form of a speech, article, book, etc., giving only the most important facts or ideas:

There is a section at the end of the magazine that includes abstracts of recent articles/books.

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Summaries and summarizing

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abstract noun [C] (ART)

a painting that uses shapes, lines, and colour in a way that does not try to represent the appearance of people or things

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Pictures

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abstract

verb

/æbˈstrækt/ us

/æbˈstrækt/

[ I or T ]

to consider something in a general way or make a general judgment after looking at particular details:

Most interviewees focus on their own experience and do not generalize or abstract the situation.

A general rule is arrived at by abstracting from the data.

[ T ]

to remove or separate someone or something from a place or context (= the situation, facts, words, etc. that exist around something):

abstract someone from something It was impossible to abstract children from their social environment with all its dangers.

abstract something from something Relevant information was abstracted from the database or from medical records.

[ T ]

to give a summary or abstract (= a short description giving the most important ideas) of something:

If you find an article you think should be abstracted in our journal, submit it for consideration.

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There are several observations that might be abstracted from this example.
We abstracted the number of cases and deaths from the 2001–2019 annual reports.
She leaves it to the reader to collect and abstract insights from her text.
We abstract a general data structure from the list of data.

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Elaborating, specifying and simplifying

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Removing and extracting

Summaries and summarizing

(Definition of abstract from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

abstract | American Dictionary

abstract

adjective

/æbˈstrækt, ˈæb·strækt/

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existing as an idea, feeling, or quality, not as a material object:

"Humanity" is an abstract idea.

English

If a statement, argument, or discussion is abstract, it is general and not based on particular examples.

art

A painting, drawing, or sculpture is described as abstract if it tries to represent the qualities of objects or people but does not show their outer appearance:

abstract art

abstract

noun [ C ]

/ˈæb·strækt/

writing

a few sentences that give the main ideas in an article or a scientific paper

(Definition of abstract from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

abstract | Business English

abstract

adjective

/ˈæbstrækt/ us

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existing as an idea, feeling, or quality, not as a material object:

"Satisfaction" is difficult to measure as it is an abstract concept.

abstract

noun [ C ]

/ˈæbstrækt/ us

a shortened form of a speech, article, book, etc., giving the most important facts or ideas:

There is a section at the end of the magazine which includes abstracts of recent articles.

(Definition of abstract from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of abstract

abstract

Each four-part volume contains around 700 abstracts reporting research in some 200 jour nals from around the world.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Function is a source of knowledge that abstracts behavior.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The editors are happy to consider advice on additional journals for abstracting.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A direct consequence of abstracting to constant functions is that any issues relating to the analysis of polymorphic functions disappear.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The underlying rock from which the water was abstracted, was calcareous and the depth of the borehole was about 60 m.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

A core set of features could be abstracted for particular domains, which could then be extended by a programmer.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Data were abstracted from the original source publication by two independent, blinded research assistants.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The different strategies utilizing evolutionary algorithms for knowledge acquisition are abstracted from the work reviewed.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Another important remark is that the presented model also abstracts from real-word resources, external to the multiagent system.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

From any concrete social or political situation, a large and possibly infinite number of different ideal constructs can be abstracted.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

By abstracting over a strict variable we get call by value (strict abstraction); in the other case we have call by name (lazy abstraction).

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The pointer chasing could be abstracted over different monads, and reused with multiple data structures representing different kinds of terms.

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What is needed is one big "class-like" thing that abstracts over all the types s, r and m, and all their operations at once.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

According to their work, top-down design of a mechanism involves defining the mechanism configuration, which is abstracted in terms of kinematic pair relations between parts.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Data on the inclusion cr iter ia, patients, methods, results, and quality of each study were independently abstracted.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of abstract?

B2,B2