Ab·stract n.
1. That which comprises or concentrates in itself the essential qualities of a larger thing or of several things. Specifically: A summary or an epitome, as of a treatise or book, or of a statement; a brief.
An abstract of every treatise he had read. --Watts.
Man, the abstract
Of all perfection, which the workmanship
Of Heaven hath modeled. --Ford.
2. A state of separation from other things; as, to consider a subject in the abstract, or apart from other associated things.
3. An abstract term.
The concretes =\“father” and “son” have, or might have, the abstracts “paternity” and “filiety.”\= --J. S. Mill.
4. Med. A powdered solid extract of a vegetable substance mixed with lactose in such proportion that one part of the abstract represents two parts of the original substance.
Abstract of title Law, a document which provides a summary of the history of ownership of a parcel of real estate, including the conveyances and mortgages; also called brief of title.
Syn: -- Abridgment; compendium; epitome; synopsis. See Abridgment.
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