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Glite Dictionary
💭 Not concrete 💭 A general concept 🎨 Not realistic 📝 A short summary 🔎 To generalize 📝 To summarize
to abstract

to abstract

1 6.4
To make a short summary of a text or talk
  • verb
  • /æbˈstrækt/
  • Formal
translation icon : resumir
  • In order to meet the requirements of the research paper, she had to abstract the main findings from her lengthy notes.
  • abstract an article
  • abstract data
  • abstract information

Examples

  • Anyone could find a packet of interest, abstract it for an indefinite period, and return it another time.

    Academic text (1998)

  • Sometimes they will abstract the animal to just give you the spirit of it rather than the the actual physique.

  • Well, let's work it out and then abstract from what I worked out the general answer.

  • The fact that anyone on the "care team" can abstract to the chart has caused serious problems.

    Blog text (6)

  • No one had bothered to find and abstract an original one to copy.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • What I'd like to do is to abstract from the uncertainty part for the next couple of lectures.

  • Information from the articles is then abstracted, coded, and entered into the database.

    Academic text (1997)

  • The benefits could be abstracted into the following major categories: cognitive benefits, social/cultural benefits, and psychological benefits.

    Academic text (2015)

  • Studies that were eligible for inclusion were abstracted according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Community Guide.

    Academic text (2013)

  • Sociodemographic, clinical, and treatment outcome information for all case-patients was abstracted from the TB registry.

    Academic text (2015)

Synonyms

to precis
vsto abstract
8.0

To make a short summary of a text or speech

is the same summary act but focused on written work and research

Antonyms

detailed
353 3.7

Having many small parts or facts that you can see

Compounds

abstract art
3 3.9

Work made with shapes and colors that does not show real things

Abstract Expressionism
  • Specialized
1 9.1

A style of painting from 1940s New York using large, free, abstract shapes and emotional brush strokes

too abstract
1 9.5

Hard to understand because it lacks clear facts or examples

abstract thought
1 7.4

Ability to think about ideas that are not present and use reason

abstract artist
1 4.2

An artist who uses shapes and colors instead of real people or places

abstract entity
8.3

An idea that exists only in thought, not as a physical thing

abstract nonsense
  • Slang
9.9

Unclear, complicated ideas that are hard to understand and not practical

abstract poetry
  • Literature
8.6

Poetry that expresses ideas and feelings rather than images

How Concise

to abstract
  • Formal
1 6.4
to condense
21 4.2
outline
59 2.7

Surface Forms

abstract infinitive
abstracted past
abstracted past participle
abstracting present participle
abstracts third person singular

Morphology

abstract = tract (semi-transparent) = ab + tract

The verb sense 'to make a summary' can be related to 'pulling out' the main points (ab- + tract), which is somewhat inferable, though learners may not know the morphemes.

Etymology

Abstract (verb meaning to make a summary) comes from ab- 'away' and tract 'draw', meaning 'to pull out' the key parts. So to abstract a paper is to pull out and write the main ideas in a short form.