abstraction

noun ab·strac·tion \ ab-ˈstrak-shən , əb- \

Definition of abstraction

1 a :the act or process of abstracting :the state of being abstracted

b :an abstract idea or term

2 :absence of mind or preoccupation

3 :abstract quality or character

4 a :an abstract composition or creation in art

b :abstractionism

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abstractional

play \-shnəl, -shə-nᵊl\ adjective

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abstractive

play \ab-ˈstrak-tiv, ˈab-ˌ\ adjective

See abstraction defined for English-language learners

See abstraction defined for kids

Examples of abstraction in a Sentence

abstraction of data from hospital records
“Beauty” and “truth” are abstractions.
She gazed out the window in abstraction.

Recent Examples of abstraction from the Web

Not an abstraction or a casual observation about a rainy day or a crescent moon, but real: our actual physical presence in a solar system, and everything that that entails, implies and signifies.

— jeffrey lee puckett, The Courier-Journal, "In the path of totality, eclipse in Hopkinsville touches many 'deep down on a soul level'," 21 Aug. 2017
The sensual quality of such paintings is evocative of the floral abstractions done by the 20th-century painter Georgia O'Keeffe.

— mike giuliano, Howard County Times, "Gliese a natural at depicting nature," 18 Aug. 2017
And so BKSK exercised the architect’s prerogative to enshrine what time erodes, translating the cast foliage designs of the 19th century into contemporary digital abstractions molded in glazed terra-cotta.

— justin davidson, Daily Intelligencer, "The Strange State of New York’s Street-Level Retail Storefronts," 14 July 2017
Shaq, Jordan, Peyton—tend to be wealthy to the point of abstraction and/or have enough cachet to slide into career 2.0.

— jon wertheim, SI.com, "The after-party: Inside the life of the modern professional athlete in retirement," 3 July 2017
An exhibition of two large-scale paintings by two masters from the mid-20th century will emphasize the innovation of American abstraction in mainstream art.

— dan kelly, kansascity, "KC events July 6-12: Noah Hawley, Summerfest, Jim Breuer, ‘An American in Paris’," 3 July 2017
Where immediately after the election, Republicans could hope to hide behind abstraction and the false promise of a pristine replacement bill, their sputtering efforts to legislate health care in the interim have completely denuded them.

— brian beutler, New Republic, "Republicans Retreat to Their Favorite Health Care Safe Space," 30 June 2017
With that in mind, the artists, individually and collectively at Ferus, began to take abstraction into novel directions.

— susan dunne, courant.com, "NBMAA's Largest Exhibit Shows Off 'L.A. Cool' Artists," 29 June 2017
The new generation of architects, Lee said, has a different attitude toward history than its predecessors: The past should not be rejected outright, as was the case with the sleek abstraction of the International Style.

— blair kamin, chicagotribune.com, "McCormick House project aims to restore Mies gem," 27 June 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'abstraction.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

From its roots, abstraction should mean basically "something pulled or drawn away". So abstract art is art that has moved away from painting objects of the ordinary physical world in order to show something beyond it. Theories are often abstractions; so a theory about economics, for instance, may "pull back" to take a broad view that somehow explains all of economics (but maybe doesn't end up explaining any of it very successfully). An abstract of a medical or scientific article is a one-paragraph summary of its contents—that is, the basic findings "pulled out" of the article.

Origin and Etymology of abstraction

borrowed from Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French, "abduction (of a woman), removal, extraction (of a foreign body from a wound), (in philosophy) process by which the mind is able to form universal representations of the properties of distinct objects," borrowed from Late Latin abstractiōn-, abstractiō, from Latin abstrac- (variant stem of abstrahere "to remove forcibly") + -tiōn-, -tiō, suffix of action nouns — more at ¹abstract

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

See Words from the same year

abstraction Synonyms

Synonyms

idea, cogitation, concept, conception, image, impression, intellection, mind's eye, notion, picture, thought

Near Antonyms

actuality, fact, reality

ABSTRACTION Defined for English Language Learners

abstraction

noun

Definition of abstraction for English Language Learners

: the act of obtaining or removing something from a source : the act of abstracting something
: a general idea or quality rather than an actual person, object, or event : an abstract idea or quality
: the state of someone who is not paying attention to what is happening or being said : an abstracted state