as in notions
something imagined or pictured in the mind
to a people who have lived under one dictatorship after another, democracy and freedom are mere abstractions
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Recent Examples of abstractions
This is because logic thinks in equations, which is another way of saying identities; and also because logic thinks in abstractions, which is another way of saying commonalities.
—
Big Think, 3 Nov. 2025
The clouds, which will hang past the security gates, are by Tomás Saraceno, an Argentine who builds abstractions of clouds and spiderwebs.
—Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 27 Oct. 2025
Generations of creatives have been inspired by African tribal art, from Pablo Picasso’s stylized abstractions to Amedeo Modigliani’s masklike portraits.
—Jill Newman, Robb Report, 19 Oct. 2025
But an explicit multistep road map moves the debate from abstractions to timelines.
—Peter Aitken, MSNBC Newsweek, 12 Oct. 2025
Anderson, who both wrote and directed the film, suppresses psychological complexity, creating characters who are little more than abstractions.
—Richard Brody, New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2025
My first true attempts at poetry were self-guided, painfully rhymed, drenched in abstractions and exhausted platitudes.
—Via Scribner, Literary Hub, 6 Oct. 2025
Geometers moved beyond concrete problems about counting, and focused instead on more general abstractions and deeper truths.
—Joseph Howlett, Quanta Magazine, 26 Sep. 2025
Messaging must make distinctions, but also avoid getting lost in parenthetic abstractions or potentially easier-to-discredit targets.
—Jason Ma, Fortune, 26 Aug. 2025
Big Think, 3 Nov. 2025
The clouds, which will hang past the security gates, are by Tomás Saraceno, an Argentine who builds abstractions of clouds and spiderwebs.
—Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 27 Oct. 2025
Generations of creatives have been inspired by African tribal art, from Pablo Picasso’s stylized abstractions to Amedeo Modigliani’s masklike portraits.
—Jill Newman, Robb Report, 19 Oct. 2025
But an explicit multistep road map moves the debate from abstractions to timelines.
—Peter Aitken, MSNBC Newsweek, 12 Oct. 2025
Anderson, who both wrote and directed the film, suppresses psychological complexity, creating characters who are little more than abstractions.
—Richard Brody, New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2025
My first true attempts at poetry were self-guided, painfully rhymed, drenched in abstractions and exhausted platitudes.
—Via Scribner, Literary Hub, 6 Oct. 2025
Geometers moved beyond concrete problems about counting, and focused instead on more general abstractions and deeper truths.
—Joseph Howlett, Quanta Magazine, 26 Sep. 2025
Messaging must make distinctions, but also avoid getting lost in parenthetic abstractions or potentially easier-to-discredit targets.
—Jason Ma, Fortune, 26 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for abstractions
Noun
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By 1974, though, many women had already discarded those notions as instruments of domination, psychic equivalents of the whalebone corset.—
James Marcus,
New Yorker,
3 Nov. 2025
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Pritam’s Partition writings offer incisive critiques of the barbarity that became life with borders but also contest notions of belonging from a feminist perspective.—
JSTOR Daily,
JSTOR Daily,
30 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
The shareholder meetings give the youngest Browns in the sixth and seventh generations, and their distant cousins, a chance to meet and bounce ideas off one another.—
Maggie Menderski,
Louisville Courier Journal,
26 Oct. 2025
-
Few characters are as beloved as those from The Wizard of Oz (1939), making for reliable costume ideas year after year.—
Catherine Santino,
PEOPLE,
25 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Many people have framed the rise of Red Shambhala as a direct response to Vril and Agartha, two concepts that have become a fixture of alt-right memes in the last year.—
Kieran Press-Reynolds,
Pitchfork,
24 Oct. 2025
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Heading into the playoffs, the Blue Jays rely on these principles not as concepts on paper, but as daily practices that sustain performance under pressure.—
Karl Moore,
Forbes.com,
24 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Running back Breece Hall, who reportedly requested a trade himself before the deadline, and edge rusher Jermaine Johnson both took to X to share their thoughts on the situation.—
Scott Thompson,
FOXNews.com,
5 Nov. 2025
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Jim Irsay stood beside his private jet just days after the 2021 season ended and made sure the camera was rolling to capture his thoughts.—
James Boyd,
New York Times,
5 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Farrell and Kidman are outstanding, even as Lanthimos' ritualistic plotting and direction keep them hemmed into their characters' rigid conceptions.—
Dennis Perkins,
Entertainment Weekly,
31 Oct. 2025
-
So this was quite a departure from traditional conceptions of the subject.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
22 Oct. 2025
Noun
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The video showed dozens of videos and pictures sent to her, all featuring people eating McDonald's fries as a show of solidarity.—
Maria Morava,
MSNBC Newsweek,
25 Oct. 2025
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Go through a corn maze, sip on apple cider, and take silly pictures with the cardboard cutouts.—
Kylie Petty,
Better Homes & Gardens,
25 Oct. 2025
Noun
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During the tracking week, the upbeat pop single amassed 29 million official streams, nearly 55 million in radio airplay audience impressions and 22,000 sold.—
Thania Garcia,
Variety,
4 Nov. 2025
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In satirizing some women’s impressions of their male partners’ cluelessness as a high-stakes matter, SNL subtly commented on these fraught domestic dynamics.—
Paula Mejía,
The Atlantic,
2 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Abstractions.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/abstractions. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.
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