abstraction

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The act of abstracting, separating, withdrawing, or taking away; withdrawal; the state of being taken away.

   The cancelling of the debt would be no destruction of wealth, but a transfer of it: a wrongful abstraction of wealth from certain members of the community, for the profit of the government, or of the tax-payers.

2. 2
   noun

   A separation from worldly objects; a recluse life; the withdrawal from one's senses.

   a hermit’s abstraction

3. 3
   noun

   The act of focusing on one characteristic of an object rather than the object as a whole group of characteristics; the act of separating said qualities from the object or ideas.

   Holonym: induction

4. 4
   noun

   An idea or notion of an abstract or theoretical nature.

   to fight for mere abstractions

5. 5
   noun

   Absence or absorption of mind; inattention to present objects; preoccupation.

   "One penny, sir!" He was roused at once from his abstraction; for it was a question to himself whether he had even that in his pocket. Sixpence was, however, discovered; he paid the toll, and passed on.

6. 6
   noun

   An abstract creation, or piece of art; qualities of artwork that are free from representational aspects.

   At one point, her spidery abstractions gave way to a series of abruptly syncopated hits, like a deranged allusion to the Thelonious Monk tune “Evidence.”

7. 7
   noun

   Hiding implementation details from the interface of a component, to decrease complexity through interdependency and improve modularity; a construct that serves as such.

   Files are an abstraction provided by the file system for storing data, so that applications do not have to care how that data is stored.

8. 8
   noun

   a general concept formed by extracting common features from specific examples

Etymology

From Middle English abstraccyone; either from Middle French abstraction or from Medieval Latin abstrāctiō (“separation”), from Latin abstrahō (“draw away”). Equivalent to abstract + -ion.