abstract

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Related to abstractness: arrivederci
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abstract (something) from (something or some place)

1. To take something without permission. Despite all of the company's security measures, hackers abstracted classified information from the server.
2. To extract key information from a longer document or text. I had to abstract all of the relevant information from that lengthy report and then present it to management.
See also: abstract

abstract away

1. To eliminate, omit, or disregard the details of something in order to generalize or simplify it at a conceptual level. A noun or pronoun can be used between "abstract" and "away." Remember that you will be delivering the results of your work to members of the public, so try to abstract away the more complicated aspects of the scientific theory. The agency abstracted the more sensitive details of the incident away, leaving a heavily redacted report that only revealed what happened in broad strokes.
2. In computer science, to hide, obscure, or mask the details of some process in order to simplify its functionality for the sake of usability. A noun or pronoun can be used between "abstract" and "away." Even simple actions on the computer create incredibly complicated processes in the software, but programmers have abstracted away the more nitty-gritty details in order to keep the average user from getting overwhelmed.
See also: abstract, away

abstract idea

An idea or thought that is intangible or outside the constraints or possibilities of the real world. Some regard love as but an abstract idea, as it is impossible to define what makes love real.
See also: abstract, idea

in the abstract

In a manner that is intangible or outside the constraints or possibilities of the real world. Love is something that exists in the abstract—it's very hard to define what makes love real.
See also: abstract
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

abstract something from someone or something

to steal something from someone or something. (Formal.) The officer was found guilty of abstracting a rather large amount of money from the company.
See also: abstract

abstract something from something

to take the important information from a longer document; to extract the essentials or the gist from a piece of complicated writing. Can you abstract a shorter article from this material?
See also: abstract
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

in the abstract

In a way that is conceptual or theoretical, as opposed to actual or empirical.
See also: abstract
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive ?
Thus, informed by psychological distance theory and CLT, we conducted three studies to examine if event abstractness and social distance have a joint influence on self-other risk perception differences.
SELF-OTHER RISK PERCEPTION BIAS: FUNCTIONS OF EVENT ABSTRACTNESS AND SOCIAL DISTANCE
We validate this measure by providing evidence for its ability to predict the semantic transparency of linguistic compounds (Experiment 1) and the abstractness rating of nouns (Experiment 2).
A Novel Procedure for Measuring Semantic Synergy
It provides metrics calculation and dependency analysis according to Number of Classes, Number ofAttributes, Number ofMethods, Number of Static Attributes, Number of Static Methods, Number of Packages, Number of Overridden Methods, Average Number of Parameters, Total Lines of Code, Average Lines of Code per Method, Abstractness (A), Afferent Coupling (Ca), Efferent Coupling (Ce), Instability (I), Normalized Distance from Main Sequence (Dn), Lack of Cohesion of Methods (LOCOM), Average Nested Block Depth, Cyclomatic Complexity, Weighted Methods per Class (WMC), and Depth of Inheritance Tree (DIT).
MEnDiGa: A Minimal Engine for Digital Games
abstractness. Soft physicality requirements ensure that such abstract
Software, abstractness, and soft physicality requirements
(82) The following contributions bring to light the dilemma of abstractness and lack of a precise definition of certain notions in the provisions of the Rome Statute, for instance, the silence of the latter on providing a clear definition of the relationship between admissibility and the notions of "situation" and "case." (83) This dilemma has already been raised by the reviewer in an earlier work, providing that the Rome Conference, which was convened in strained circumstances, had failed to answer several substantial issues debated in the 'PrepCom' meetings during the two years preceding the Conference, including a sophisticated text of the proposed statute containing 116 articles with approximately 1,400 words in brackets.
The International Criminal Court and Complementarity
Creativity was operationalized using the Torrance Figural Tests of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1998, 2008) scored for each of the five dimensions of creativity (Fluency, Originality, Elaboration, Abstractness of Titles and Resistance to Closure), the sum of 13 Creative Strengths that measure characteristics of creative personality, and the Creative Index, which combines the five dimensions and the Creative Strengths score.
Medication and creativity in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)/ Medicacion y creatividad en el trastorno por deficit de atencion con hiperactividad (TDAH)
This information can be deadening in its abstractness. We struggle to care when the numbers get big.
The arithmetic of compassion
Currently sharing this level is an exhibition of classical sculptures by Isabelo Tampinco in order to provide something different for those yearning for something more than the abstractness of his works.
A glass house by the lake
Moreover there are substantial differences in the level of 'abstractness' and analytical quality of the chapters.
Engaging Nature: Environmentalism and the Political Theory Canon
There may be no obvious functionality to something, and yet its abstractness reveals a fundamental sense of the ever-changing, ever-moving and ever-wondrous natural world.
Forms and patterns: Hideaki and Ryoichi Suzuki in Tokyo
This quality of purposeful abstractness makes everything sound and seem contrived.
The queen travels by van
The Court articulated a rule to determine whether an invention was invalid due to abstractness under Section 101:
In patent cases, transformation is the key: software validation stems from invalidation in supreme court case
This is partly due to the abstractness of structure and partly due to the fact that associative organization is given by the score.
A Theory of Music Analysis: On Segmentation and Associative Organization
He turns to Gillian Rose's reading of Hegel to diagnose "the cause of the abstractness of contemporary philosophy and social theory (and theology, by extension) as the unacknowledged influence of bourgeois property right, which surreptitiously determines our experience of the world" (2-3).
Waiting and Being: Creation, Freedom, and Grace in Western Theology
Most of the presentations shared a kind of abstractness, discussing animals in general or in principle or in imagination.
Among animals
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