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What does the Latin root of abstract translate to?

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abstract

American  

[ab-strakt, ab-strakt, ab-strakt, ab-strakt, ab-strakt] / æbˈstrækt, ˈæb strækt, ˈæb strækt, æbˈstrækt, ˈæb strækt /

adjective

1. 

   thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances.

   an abstract idea.

2. expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance, as justice, poverty, and speed.

3. not applied or practical; theoretical.

   abstract science.

4. difficult to understand; abstruse.

   abstract speculations.

5. Fine Arts.

   1. of or relating to the formal aspect of art, emphasizing lines, colors, generalized or geometrical forms, etc., especially with reference to their relationship to one another.

   2. Often Abstract pertaining to the nonrepresentational art styles of the 20th century.

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noun

• abstracts
  plural

1. a summary of a text, scientific article, document, speech, etc.; epitome.

2. something that concentrates in itself the essential qualities of anything more extensive or more general, or of several things; essence.

3. an idea or term considered apart from some material basis or object.

4. an abstract work of art.

verb (used with object)

• abstracts,
  present (3rd person singular)
• abstracted,
  past participle,  past
• abstracting
  present participle

1. to make an abstract of; summarize.

2. to draw or take away; remove.

3. to divert or draw away the attention of.

4. to steal.

5. to consider as a general quality or characteristic apart from specific objects or instances.

   to abstract the notions of time, space, and matter.

idioms

1. abstract away from, to omit from consideration.

2. in the abstract, without reference to a specific object or instance; in theory.

   beauty in the abstract.

abstract British  

adjective

1. having no reference to material objects or specific examples; not concrete

2. not applied or practical; theoretical

3. hard to understand; recondite; abstruse

4. denoting art characterized by geometric, formalized, or otherwise nonrepresentational qualities

5. defined in terms of its formal properties

   an abstract machine

6. philosophy (of an idea) functioning for some empiricists as the meaning of a general term

   the word ``man'' does not name all men but the abstract idea of manhood

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noun

1. a condensed version of a piece of writing, speech, etc; summary

2. an abstract term or idea

3. an abstract painting, sculpture, etc

4. without reference to specific circumstances or practical experience

verb

1. to think of (a quality or concept) generally without reference to a specific example; regard theoretically

2. to form (a general idea) by abstraction

3. (also intr) to summarize or epitomize

4. to remove or extract

5. euphemistic to steal

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• abstracter
  noun
• abstractness
  noun
• nonabstractness
  noun
• superabstractness
  noun
• overabstract
  verb (used with object)
• nonabstract
  adjective
• preabstract
  adjective
• superabstract
  adjective
• abstractly
  adverb
• nonabstractly
  adverb
• superabstractly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• abstracts
  plural

Participles

• abstracting
  present
• abstracted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• abstract
  simple
• abstracts
  simple
• have abstracted
  perfect
• has abstracted
  perfect
• am abstracting
  progressive
• are abstracting
  progressive
• is abstracting
  progressive
• have been abstracting
  perfect progressive
• has been abstracting
  perfect progressive

Past

• abstracted
  simple
• had abstracted
  perfect
• was abstracting
  progressive
• were abstracting
  progressive
• had been abstracting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will abstract
  simple
• will have abstracted
  perfect
• will be abstracting
  progressive
• will have been abstracting
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of abstract

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English: “withdrawn from worldly interests,” from Latin abstractus “drawn off” (past participle of abstrahere ). See abs-, tract ¹

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Explanation

Use the adjective abstract for something that is not a material object or is general and not based on specific examples. Abstract is from a Latin word meaning "pulled away, detached," and the basic idea is of something detached from physical, or concrete, reality. It is frequently used of ideas, meaning that they don't have a clear applicability to real life, and of art, meaning that it doesn't pictorially represent reality. It is also used as a noun, especially in the phrase "in the abstract" (a joke has a person laying down a new sidewalk saying "I like little boys in the abstract, but not in the concrete"), and as a verb (accented on the second syllable), meaning "to remove."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

abstract abstracts abstracted abstracting

“Blue Water” centers the work of Kim Whanki, the late globe-trotting abstract artist and the first RM says he “fell for.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026

War is no longer an abstract concept for Australians who often feel removed from the problems facing other parts of the world.

From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026

This particularly productive decade is the focus of Voena’s presentation that shows the Italian artist working with reclaimed advertising posters to create abstract décollage canvases that evolved to also include realist elements.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

Private equity is abstract by design; the role of these firms is hard to figure for anyone outside of the C-suite.

From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026

Being with Pearl made the world feel bigger, even as being with him made Pearl feel more grounded, less abstract, more real.

From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng

All abstracts were reviewed by the congress selection committee.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 13, 2026

The evening sale will also include several newer abstracts, dated to 2008 and 2009.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026

Richter, 94, is known for experimenting with ways to refresh traditional painting categories, including portraits, still lifes and abstracts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026

The court found the “Gonna Love Me” singer had violated the “prohibition against disclosure of ‘summaries, abstracts, portions and descriptions’” of the final judgment in their divorce.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2025

As a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true, and yet because it abstracts, because it generalizes, I can’t believe it with my stomach.

From "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

Apps themselves might be abstracted away as smartphone agents call online services directly on behalf of their users.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

One might have expected some gesture toward its origins, rather than its cool and highly abstracted references to Harlem.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025

The show is centered around her “Linear Language” series, where Hurtado abstracted various words into geometric shapes and patterns to create a new kind of portrait.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2025

Perhaps I had joined the ranks of the global internet proletariat, hammering clicks on the abstracted factory floor of the future?

From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2025

Georgia O’Keeffe called some of her works “equivalents” because their forms were abstracted in a way that gave the emotional parallel of the source experience.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

I learned early to keep abstracting out from the trade to the portfolio to the business that produces the portfolio.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026

The bottle is the trap philosophers inadvertently create for themselves by abstracting concepts such as “knowledge,” “being” and “object” from their ordinary usage and analyzing them as though each has some kind of independent essence.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 18, 2025

We should pay less attention to the precedents and more to the impacts, and we need to stop abstracting the actual gains and losses that come out of these decisions.

From Slate ● Jun. 9, 2025

One of the UK's wealthiest women has had to pay £28,000 after abstracting too much water from a chalk stream during a drought.

From BBC ● Feb. 11, 2025

Leisured, and skilled at abstracting from immediate experience, the scholar is able to see how aspects of individual experience constitute a culture.

From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez

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Related Words

• abstruse
• hypothetical
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