ab extra

American  

[ahb ek-strah, ab ek-struh] / ɑb ˈɛk strɑ, æb ˈɛk strə /

adverb

Latin.

1. from the outside.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ab extra

"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

Ecclesiastical figures abound in his pages, jolly friars, holy hermits, lordly prelates, grim inquisitors, abbots, priors, and priests of all descriptions, but all somewhat conventional and viewed ab extra.

From A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)

So long as deistic views of the relation of God to man and the world held the field, revelation meant something interjected ab extra into the established order of things.

From An Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant by Moore, Edward Caldwell

Without provocation ab extra, without warning on their own part, suddenly they place themselves in an attitude of desperate defiance to the known law of the land.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. by Various

For he could see himself, and laugh at himself, ab extra, better than most men.

From Delia Blanchflower by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.