Search the Dictionary

Considered as pure entity; abstracted from all circumstances. Ellis. -- En"ti*ta*tive*ly, adv.

word essence . . . scarcely underwent a more complete transformation when from being the abstract of the verb "to be," it came to denote something sufficiently concrete to be inclosed in a glass bottle. J. S. Mill.

on, distillation, or other mechanical or chemical process; as, to extract an essence. Cf. Abstract, v. t., 6. Sunbeams may be extracted from cucumbers, but the process is tedious.

A mode of expressing abstract or immaterial ideas by words which suggest pictures or images from the physical world; pictorial language; a trope; hence, any deviation from the plainest form of statement. To represent the imagination under the figure of a wing. Macaulay.

To become congealed by cold; to be changed from a liquid to a solid state by the abstraction of heat; to be hardened into ice or a like solid body.

A note at the head of a page or chapter; in law reports, an abstract of a case, showing the principles involved and the opinion of the court.

k too little and who talk too much. Dryden. You can never interest the common herd in the abstract question. Coleridge. Herd's grass (Bot.), one of several species of grass, highly esteemed for hay. See under Grass.

Very abstract; difficult to comprehend or surmount; grand; noble. Both meet to hear and answer such high things. Shak. Plain living and high thinking are no more. Wordsworth.

a being who had rejected with indifference the attitude of sex for the loftier quality of abstract humanism. T. Hardy.

the necessary metaphysical or constituent attributes and relations, when conceived in the abstract.

With reference to physical surrounding, personal states, etc., abstractly denoted; as, I am in doubt; the room is in darkness; to live in fear. When shall we three meet again, In thunder, lightning, or in rain Shak.

Capable of being perceived by the understanding only, not by the senses. Intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics. Milton.

onception generalized from first intuition or apprehension already formed by the mind; an abstract notion; especially, a classified notion, as species, genus, whiteness. -- To heal by the first intention (Surg.), to cicatrize, as a wound, without suppuration. -- To heal by the second intention (Surg.), to unite after…

his intention of resigning his office. The names of simple ideas and substances, with the abstract ideas in the mind, intimate some real existence, from which was derived their original pattern. Locke.

nstructed; dominion, territory ruled over; subjection, state of being subject; dejection; abstraction.

ican plant Ipomoea purga (or Exogonium purga), a climber much like the morning-glory. The abstract, extract, and powder, prepared from the tubers, are well known purgative medicines. Other species of Ipomoea yield several inferior kinds of jalap, as the I. Orizabensis, and I. tuberosa. False jalap, the root of Mirabili…

lural. There is a great difference in the delivery of the mathematics, which are the most abstracted of knowledges. Bacon. Knowledges is a term in frequent use by Bacon, and, though now obsolete, should be revived, as without it we are compelled to borrow "cognitions" to express its import. Sir W. Hamilton. To use a wo…

r short passage which always accompanies the reappearance of a certain person, situation, abstract idea, or allusion in the course of the play; a sort of musical label. -- Leading note (Mus.), the seventh note or tone in the ascending major scale; the sensible note. -- Leading question, a question so framed as to gui…

. -- Line of battle ship. See Ship of the line, below. -- Line of beauty (Fine Arts),an abstract line supposed to be beautiful in itself and absolutely; -- differently represented by different authors, often as a kind of elongated S (like the one drawn by Hogarth). -- Line of centers. (Mach.) (a) A line joining two…

The tendency or disposition to represent objects faithfully, without abstraction, conventionalities, or idealization.