adjective
-
lost in thought; preoccupied
-
taken out or separated; extracted
Related Words
See absent-minded.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of abstracted
Explanation
If you're abstracted, you're preoccupied with thoughts other than what's going on around you. An abstracted person on the bus might forget to get off at her stop. When your abstracted friend doesn't answer your repeated questions, it's not just because he's not listening — his mind is absorbed by heavy thoughts or worries that make him inattentive. Being distracted is similar, but abstracted implies that it's something inside you that's pulling your attention away, rather than a TV screen, the smell of nachos, or the sound of laughter. Abstracted is from the Latin root abstractus, "drawn away."
Vocabulary lists containing abstracted
"The Minister's Black Veil," Vocabulary from the short story
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Absent
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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.
Local anglers say it is a short distance upstream from where drinking water is abstracted.
From BBC • May 6, 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 purposefully abstracted, says Hull, to allow audience members to attach their own narratives.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 11, 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
“He would grow abstracted and silent, and a faraway look would come into his eyes, and the building was there before him—every stone.”
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
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.
