ab extra
Americanadverb
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"It seems to me," he said, "that there is a guiding and directing principle ab extra which interacts with the material of the physical universe but is not of it."
From Time Magazine Archive
We are conscious that he is a cold-blooded spectator ab extra striving to describe what he has never felt for himself.
From The Tale of Terror A Study of the Gothic Romance by Birkhead, Edith
But some of his expressions are objectionable, as they seem to assume a material substratum, animated ab extra by an infusion of the Logos.
From Christian Mysticism by Inge, William Ralph
He created his epic, as metaphysicians have said that God created the world, by drawing it out of himself, not by building it up out of elements supplied ab extra.
From Milton by Pattison, Mark
It was a strange position for a young woman to be in—that of watcher over the marriage relations of two persons, to neither of whom she could be a friend otherwise than ab extra.
From Paul Faber, Surgeon by MacDonald, George
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
