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

"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

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

Discoursing upon the hypothesis of "a fortuitous concourse of atoms" Dr. Priestley asks, "what reason we have to think that small masses of matter can have power without communication ab extra?"

From Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever by Turner, Matthew

To the former I complained of persecution ab extra, which might be stopped by police intervention, of the latter I demanded explanations for personal vexations and insults.

From Letters of a Lunatic A Brief Exposition of My University Life, During the Years 1853-54 by Adler, George J.

But the germination of every seed depends on conditions ab extra, and all germs are modified, in their development, by geographical and climatal surroundings.

From Christianity and Greek Philosophy or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles by Cocker, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin)