abstract

in a sentence

grouped by contextual meaning

She struggles with abstract reasoning.

He loved her only in the abstract--not in person.

Now, Henry, are we going to have another one of those abstract discussions?  (source) Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park, 1993

All representations of a thing are inherently abstract.  (source) John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012

He examined his eternal matchbox, the lid of which said GUARANTEED: ONE MILLION LIGHTS IN THIS IGNITER, and began to strike the chemical match abstractedly, blow out, strike, blow out, strike, speak a few words, blow out.  (source) Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1953

From the top of the peak, the clouds appeared as a silver-white sea, and the rise and fall of the waves seemed like abstractions of the Greater Khingan Mountains below.†  (source) Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem, 2008

Of all things, there had to be something better to do than ruin our evening by inviting Patch, albeit abstractly, into it.†  (source) Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush, 2009

So I speak to him and say to him: "Comrade, I did not want to kill you." If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response.  (source) Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929

We pour Scotch into a glass and then call to mind thoughts of water, and then we mix the actual Scotch with the abstracted idea of water.  (source) John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012

The desert is the environment of revelation, genetically and physiologically alien, sensorily austere, esthetically abstract, historically inimical….  (source) Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild, 1996

Langdon had lectured often enough on the Knights Templar to know that almost everyone on earth had heard of them, at least abstractedly.†  (source) Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, 2003

Abstractions about capital punishment were one thing, but the details of systematically killing someone who is not a threat are completely different.†  (source) Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy, 2014

Lincoln's secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, observe in their monumental biography: Abstractly it was enough that the Government was in the right.†  (source) Richard Hofstadter, Abraham Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth, 1948

A statistical abstract is published each year.

Evidently it still appeared in the original Red Book, as it did in several of the copies and abstracts.  (source) J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954

She wondered if those were the same abstracts, files, and professional impedimenta on his desk that were there when she would run in, out of breath, desperate for an ice cream cone, and request a nickel.  (source) Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman, 2015

That didn't answer very well; and then I began to state cases for them, and make abstracts, and that sort of work.  (source) Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1850

Much of his department's work-the forwarding of statistical information, the abstracting of the world's press, and the like-had continued automatically.†  (source) Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End, 1953

I recognized neither language nor script—and the only sense I could abstract from it was...  (source) Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road, 1963

As a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true, and yet because it abstracts, because it generalizes, I can't believe it with my stomach.†  (source) Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried, 1990

Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into Dorset's hand.†  (source) O. Henry, The Ransom of Red Chief, 1910

"I suppose, now," said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, "we shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses extant:"  (source) Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847

Wild-looking abstracts, tornadoes of gyrating light-hackers who are hoping that Da5id will notice their talent, invite them inside, give them a job.†  (source) Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, 1992

I sat in meditation two days and two nights, abstracting my mind; inbreathing and outbreathing in the required manner ...Upon the second night—so great was my reward—the wise Soul loosed itself from the silly Body and went free.†  (source) Rudyard Kipling, Kim, 1901

There are some other articles; but these are the most important, of which I have read you an abstract.  (source) Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, 1726

As it was they watched, benumbed, as their portrait pictures, the vital stuffs of their mortal greed, rancor, and poisonous guilt, the emerald abstracts of their self-blinded eyes, self-wounded mouths, self-trapped bodies melted one by one from this insignificant mound of snow.†  (source) Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes, 1962

The room is decorated with abstract art.

... it is a stretch of bare land and several rusted metal sculptures—one an abstract, plated mammoth,  (source) Veronica Roth, Divergent, 2011

"It was like an abstract painting," Louie said later.  (source) Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, 2010

She didn't have any particular style; some of her paintings were what she called primitive, some were impressionistic and abstract, some were realistic.  (source) Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle, 2005

The rest of the art was cool, too—big abstract paintings of hard-edged geometric shapes, an assemblage of old wooden chairs precariously stacked to the ceiling, a huge photograph of a kid jumping on a trampoline alone in a vast harvested cornfield—but Mychal's was my favorite, and not just because I knew him.  (source) John Green, Turtles All the Way Down, 2017

The next was an abstract image of curious porpoises circling the boat, with the words of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" drifting in the clouds.  (source) Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing, 2018

The law office itself had a reception area that might as well have been that of a five-star hotel: a flower arrangement of eighteenth-century density and ostentation, thick mushroom-coloured wall-to-wall, an abstract painting composed of pricey smudges.  (source) Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin, 2000

Tally remembered growing up surrounded by Sol's woodwork, abstract shapes fashioned from fallen branches she would collect from parks as a littlie.  (source) Scott Westerfeld, Uglies, 2005

And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. That's all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people.  (source) Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1953

Also there was art everywhere: abstract paintings on the walls, several ceramic pieces, and two of Wes's smaller sculptures on display on either side of the fireplace.  (source) Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever, 2004

Abstract painting is more up my alley.  (source) Christina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban, 1992

NICK: (Indicating the abstract painting) Who . . . who did the . . . ?  (source) Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1962

It's just another piece of the puzzle she is. But the more she gives me, the more abstract she gets. It's like pieces to three different puzzles. You try to put them together but they never fit, and when you force them, the picture comes out all wrong.  (source) Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility, 2012

She had an abstracted look.

His face was abstracted. All day he kept turning to look out the window as if someone would come.  (source) Madeline Miller, Circe, 2018

His wrecked, still-handsome face had the same abstracted air it often had in the mornings, at the breakfast table, as if he were listening to a song, or a distant explosion.  (source) Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin, 2000

In a moment of mental abstraction, for which I never can forgive myself, I deposited the manuscript in the basinette, and placed the baby in the hand-bag.  (source) Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, 1905

Even John Holbrook's farewells were abstracted.  (source) Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, 1958

Anne gave herself up to a silent rapture over the shore road and Marilla guided the sorrel abstractedly while she pondered deeply.  (source) Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne Of Green Gables, 1908

Another short fit of abstraction followed, when, shaking it off, she thus attacked her companion.  (source) Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814

Abstracted, stranded in her memory, she seemed not to hear, and also was plainly close to tears.  (source) William Styron, Sophie's Choice, 1976

For several days after Tess's arrival Clare, sitting abstractedly reading from some book, periodical, or piece of music just come by post, hardly noticed that she was present at table.  (source) Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, 1891

After a few minutes of abstraction, she did a rough sketch of the street scene as seen from her room, amazed at how easily it came.†  (source) Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook, 1996

They weren't rude; they were simply abstracted, like people who had lost a role.  (source) V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River, 1979

"Edward Cullen is staring at you again," Jessica said, finally breaking through my abstraction with his name.†  (source) Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, 2005

If he left the room for a minute she'd look around uneasily, and say: "Where's Tom gone?" and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door.  (source) F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925

A water abstraction license is required.

In the confusion attending the finding of Rogers' body I slipped into Lombard's room and abstracted his revolver.  (source) Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None, 1939

There was the same handsome unpleasantness of mien, but now he wore neatly trimmed, old-fashioned whiskers, the sable moustache having disappeared; and his dress was half-clerical, a modification which had changed his expression sufficiently to abstract the dandyism from his features, and to hinder for a second her belief in his identity.  (source) Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, 1891

John Horner, a plumber, was accused of having abstracted it from the lady's jewel-case.  (source) Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892

She could not abstract her mind five minutes: she was forced to listen; his reading was capital, and her pleasure in good reading extreme.  (source) Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814

"Then Nelly has not done me credit for what I trust I deserve," returned the single-minded Doctor, "for I am not of the phlebotomising school at all; greatly preferring the practice which purifies the blood instead of abstracting it."  (source) James Fenimore Cooper, The Prairie, 1827

The differences which distinguished them as individuals were abstracted by this passion, and each was but portion of one organism called sex.  (source) Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, 1891

At any rate, permit me to abstract its further contents.  (source) Agatha Christie, Early Cases Of Hercule Poirot, 1935

John Horner, 26, plumber, was brought up upon the charge of having upon the 22nd inst., abstracted from the jewel-case of the Countess of Morcar the valuable gem known as the blue carbuncle.  (source) Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892

Nevertheless, I was convinced that someone had gone to the chocolate box, opening the full one first by mistake, and had abstracted the contents of the last chocolate, cramming in instead as many little trinitrine tablets as it would hold.  (source) Agatha Christie, Early Cases Of Hercule Poirot, 1935

The kindly dimness of the weak candle abstracted from her form and features the little blemishes which sunlight might have revealed—the stubble scratches upon her wrists, and the weariness of her eyes—her high enthusiasm having a transfiguring effect upon the face which had been her undoing, showing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with a touch of dignity which was almost regal.  (source) Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, 1891

Mademoiselle Patricia's key, which M. Donovan Bailey abstracted from her bag some time during the evening.  (source) Agatha Christie, Early Cases Of Hercule Poirot, 1935

And, abstracted from any experience on the subject, we can be at no loss to determine, that when the place of election is at an INCONVENIENT DISTANCE from the elector, the effect upon his conduct will be the same whether that distance be twenty miles or twenty thousand miles.  (source) James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, & John Jay, The Federalist Papers, 1788