abstraction
/æbˈstɹæk.ʃn̩/ noun C1- The act of abstracting, separating, withdrawing, or taking away; withdrawal; the state of being taken away.
- The taking surreptitiously for one's own use part of the property of another; purloining.
- Removal of water from a river, lake, or aquifer.
- A separation from worldly objects; a recluse life; the withdrawal from one's senses. · a hermit’s abstraction
- The act of focusing on one characteristic of an object rather than the object as a whole group of characteristics; the act of separating said qualities from the object or ideas. · Holonym: induction· Abstraction is necessary for the classification of things into genera and species.
- Any characteristic of an individual object when that characteristic has been separated from the object and is contemplated alone as a quality having independent existence.
- A member of an idealized subgroup when contemplated according to the abstracted quality which defines the subgroup.
- The act of comparing commonality between distinct objects and organizing using those similarities; the act of generalizing characteristics; the product of said generalization.
Plural abstractions
From the library
When I looked at him he had finished reading the note, and his eyes had assumed the vacant, lack-lustre expression which showed mental abstraction.
He followed the man, reached the window, saw the abstraction of the documents, and pursued the thief.
“What are you thinking of?” asked the abbé smilingly, imputing the deep abstraction in which his visitor was plunged to the excess of his awe and wonder.
They might have remained much longer lost in one another, without anyone noticing their abstraction.
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