Abstract

How to spell abstract

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce abstract

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does abstract mean?

1. adjectiveExisting as a general idea or quality rather than as a concrete, physical thing.
2. nounA short written summary of a longer piece of writing such as a research paper.
3. verbTo remove or separate something, or to condense a text into a summary.

Abstract in a sentence

• adjective

  The lecture dealt with abstract concepts like justice and freedom.

• noun

  The journal asks authors to submit a 200-word abstract with each article.

• verb

  The analyst worked to abstract the key figures from the lengthy report.

• adjective

  Some employees struggle with abstract targets that have no clear figures attached.

• noun

  She read the abstract to decide whether the full study was worth her time.

• verb

  Researchers must abstract the main findings before the paper can be indexed.

Where does abstract come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin abstractus, the past participle of abstrahere, which literally meant 'to draw away' or 'to drag off'. That verb was formed from abs-, meaning 'away from', joined to trahere, meaning 'to pull or draw', the same root that gives us 'tractor', 'attract' and 'extract'. The idea of drawing the mind away from concrete particulars towards general qualities gave rise to the philosophical sense of 'abstract' as something separated from material reality, and English took the word up in the late 1300s, partly through Old French. From the notion of something drawn out came the noun sense of a 'summary', the essence pulled out of a longer text. Knowing that the core is tract, the same chunk seen in 'subtract' and 'contract', helps fix the spelling of the second half.

How the word is built

• abs- (away from)
• tract (from Latin trahere: to draw or pull)