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💡 A general idea 🎨 An abstract artwork 🤔 Deep thought 💧 Taking away
abstraction

abstraction

4 7.6
Being lost in thought and not noticing other things
  • noun
  • /æbˈstrækʃən/
translation icon : ensimismamiento
  • And it's really going to bring you, you know, face to face with the the sort of existential reality of this abstraction that we're talking about.

To find ways to reconnect even within the midst of that abstraction.

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Examples

  • But Soviet Jews didn't remain an abstraction for long.

    Academic text (2011)

  • Then his drifting abstraction formed into a voice, and he began to speak again.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • This, this abstraction cannot be all that we're working with.

  • And it's a bit of a strange abstraction and an unnecessary one.

  • Does it make sense to think of her answering the call of the child in abstraction from such knowledge?

    Academic text (1994)

  • It's no longer remaining in a sort of abstraction or just pure representation.

  • Well, that's exactly the problem with abstraction, right?

  • The power of melancholy explains not only the persistence of the abstraction of absence in American mourning, but also its popular success.

    Academic text (2014)

  • Wilson's lifelong intellectual absorption came at the cost of a certain abstraction and incompetence in practical matters.

    Academic text (1990)

  • She was in a deep state of abstraction, completely lost in her own thoughts during the lecture.

Synonyms

preoccupation
vsabstraction
26 5.6

Thinking about something a lot and not noticing other things

specifies thought absorption that leaves out other matters
absorption
vsabstraction
5 4.9

A person gives complete attention to something and does not notice other things

emphasizes being absorbed in thought that excludes other things
abstractedness
vsabstraction
9.9

A state of being deeply lost in thought and not noticing things around you

is the same idea but described as a state rather than a quality

Antonyms

awareness
336 3.2

Knowing about something or noticing it

Compounds

semi-abstraction
  • Specialized
8.8

An art style where some things look like real life but not completely

How Preoccupied

preoccupation
26 5.6
abstraction
4 7.6
inattention
8 4.6

Surface Forms

abstraction singular
abstractions plural

Morphology

abstraction = abstract (semi-transparent) = abstract + ion

Related to being 'abstract' or 'abstracted' (preoccupied), but the idiomatic sense 'a state of preoccupation' is not perfectly predictable for all learners.

Etymology

Abstraction is built from ab- 'away' and tract 'to pull'; imagine a person 'pulled away' by their thoughts. That image explains why abstraction can mean being lost in thought and not noticing the world around you.