Abstract Meaning: Ideas, Art and Summaries

The abstract meaning as an adjective

If a teacher asks you to define abstract as an adjective, you can give three closely linked senses.

1. Not physical. Something you can think about but cannot see or hold: freedom, kindness, risk.
2. General or theoretical. Far from practical detail: "The talk was too abstract; I wanted real examples."
3. In art. Using shapes, colors and lines without trying to show real objects: "an abstract painting of blue and orange blocks."

In grammar, an abstract noun names an idea, quality or state, such as honesty, childhood or anger. Our page on the noun covers concrete and abstract nouns side by side.

The abstract of a paper

As a noun, an abstract is a short summary placed at the start of a research article, thesis or conference paper. It usually runs about 150 to 300 words and tells the reader four things: the question, the method, the main results and what they mean. Readers use it to decide whether the full paper is worth their time.

In US property law, an abstract of title is a summary of a land parcel's ownership history and recorded claims, used when a property is bought.

Abstract as a verb

In its verb use, usually stressed on the second syllable, abstract means to take something out or to separate an idea from particular cases. "The researchers abstracted data from hospital records." "We can abstract a general rule from these examples." In older or formal English it could also be a polite way of saying "steal": "he abstracted a few coins from the till."

The past form abstracted, used of a person, means lost in thought: "She gave an abstracted nod and kept reading."

Examples across settings

• Young children find abstract ideas like fairness easier to grasp through stories.
• Please submit a 250-word abstract along with your conference application.
• The new mural is abstract, so everyone sees something different in it.
• Maths becomes more abstract once letters start standing in for numbers.
• His promise felt abstract until he named a date.

Abstract vs concrete

Concrete things can be sensed; abstract ones are understood. Good writing often links the two, using a tangible example to make an abstract point clear. A related idea is the notion, a word for a belief or idea held in the mind.

A word that was drawn away

It entered English during the late 1300s, a loan from Latin abstractus, "drawn away," the past participle of abstrahere. It first appeared in grammar for nouns that do not name concrete things. The noun for a summary of a document appeared in the mid-1400s; the verb followed in the 1540s. Its use for art that does not show real objects is a modern sense, recorded in the early twentieth century.

Where people get it wrong

Some people write "abstract" when they mean "absurd" or "vague." An abstract idea is not silly, only non-physical, and it can be very precise, like a number. Another mix-up is the stress: say AB-strakt for the adjective and the summary, and ab-STRAKT for the verb, though many speakers use the first stress for everything. Science and ideas collects more academic vocabulary of this kind.