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Being away from a place; withdrawn from a place; not present. "Expecting absent friends." Shak.

Absent in mind; abstracted; preoccupied. -- Ab`sent-mind"ed*ness, n. -- Ab`sent-mind"ed*ly, adv.

Pertaining to absence. [Obs.]

The act of absenting one's self. Sir W. Hamilton.

One who absents himself from his country, office, post, or duty; especially, a landholder who lives in another country or district than that where his estate is situated; as, an Irish absentee. Macaulay.

The state or practice of an absentee; esp. the practice of absenting one's self from the country or district where one's estate is situated.

One who absents one's self.

In an absent or abstracted manner.

The state of being absent; withdrawal. [R.] Barrow.

The quality of being absent-minded. H. Miller.

A state of being absent or withdrawn from a place or from companionship; -- opposed to presence. Not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. Phil. ii. 12.

Abstracted; absent in mind. "Abstract, as in a trance." Milton. An abstract idea (Metaph.), an idea separated from a complex object, or from other ideas which naturally accompany it; as the solidity of marble when contemplated apart from its color or figure. -- Abstract terms, those which express abstract ideas, as be…

Inattentive to surrounding objects; absent in mind. "An abstracted scholar." Johnson.

To grant license to; to permit; to consent to; as, to allow a son to be absent.

vious method of his discourse, and addresses, in the second person, some person or thing, absent or present; as, Milton's apostrophe to Light at the beginning of the third book of "Paradise Lost."

Absent; gone; at a distance; as, the master is away from home.

ence, clothing. A bak to walken inne by daylight. Chaucer. Behind one's back, when one is absent; without one's knowledge; as, to ridicule a person behind his back. -- Full back, Half back, Quarter back (Football), players stationed behind those in the front line. -- To be or lie on one's back, to be helpless. -- To…

To wound by clandestine detraction; to censure meanly or spitefully (as absent person); to slander or speak evil of (one absent). Spenser.

iving or dead, as distinguished from the spirit, or vital principle; the physical person. Absent in body, but present in spirit. 1 Cor. v. 3 For of the soul the body form doth take. For soul is form, and doth the body make. Spenser.

f the house (Legislative Bodies), a calling over the names of members, to discover who is absent, or for other purposes; a calling of names with a view to obtaining the ayes and noes from the persons named. -- Call to the bar, admission to practice in the courts.