Sekirov Dictionary

absolute

/ˈæb.sə.luːt/

adjective 25
noun 6
forms 6
phrases 2

adjective25

•
as full or as great as something can possibly be, not made smaller or weaker in any way
- an absolute denial of all charges
- When caught, he told an absolute lie.
•
Free from imperfection, perfect, complete; especially, perfectly embodying a quality in its essential characteristics or to its highest degree.
- So absolute she seems, / And in herself complete. — 1667
Pure, free from mixture or adulteration; unmixed.
•
Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.
- While Americans enjoy an almost absolute freedom to name their children whatever they please, in Germany the State (as public guardian of the good of the child) restricts parents [...] — 2005
•
Unrestricted by laws, a constitution, or parliamentary or judicial or other checks; (legally) unlimited in power, especially if despotic.
- An absolute monarch is free from all forcible restraint, and so far as he is absolute[,] from all legal restraints of positive laws. — 1846
Indicating an expression that is true for all real numbers, or of all values of the variable; unconditional.
•
[after a noun] (formal) Indicating that a tenure or estate in land is not conditional or liable to terminate on (strictly) any occurrence or (sometimes contextually) certain kinds of occurrence.
- A freehold property is an estate in fee simple absolute in possession.
•
Fundamental, ultimate, intrinsic; not relative; independent of references or relations to other things or standards.
- the doctrine that absolute knowledge of things is possible; an absolute principle
- Absolute rights and duties are such as pertain to man in a state of nature as contradistinguished from relative rights and duties, or such as pertain to him in his social relations.
•
Independent of arbitrary units of measurement, standards, or properties; not comparative or relative.
- His experiments led him to infer that the boiling point of the substance is probably below 9 degrees absolute. — 1903
Having reference to or derived in the simplest manner from the fundamental units of mass, time, and length.
Relating to the absolute temperature scale (based on absolute zero); kelvin.
Pertaining to a grading system based on the knowledge of the individual and not on the comparative knowledge of the group of students.
Independent of (references to) other arts; expressing things (beauty, ideas, etc) only in one art.
•
Positive, certain; unquestionable; not in doubt.
- Yet if the register is not to be absolute evidence of proprietorship, it is clear that some investigation of title would still be necessary. — 1862
As measured using an absolute value.
•
Characteristic of an absolutist ruler: domineering, peremptory.
- The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, / With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed. — 1856
Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence; not in a syntactical relation with other parts of a text, or qualifying the text as a whole rather than any single word in it, like "it being over" in "it being over, she left".
Syntactically connected to the rest of the sentence in an atypical manner, or not relating to or depending on it, like in the nominative absolute or genitive absolute, accusative absolute or ablative absolute.
Lacking a modified substantive, like "hungry" in "feed the hungry".
Expressing a relative term without a definite comparison, like "older" in "an older person should be treated with respect".
Having no direct object, like "kill" in "if looks could kill".
•
Positive; not graded (not comparative or superlative).
- Even when the absolute form of an adverb ends in -ly, the comparative and superlative are identical with the corresponding forms of the adjective: badly, worse, worst. — 1991
Being or pertaining to an inflected verb that is not preceded by any number of particles or compounded with a preverb.
•
(no longer used) Certain; free from doubt or uncertainty (e.g. a person, opinion or prediction).
- I am absolute ’twas very Cloten. — 1611
(no longer used) Absolved; free.

noun6

•
That which exists (or has a certain property, nature, size, etc) independent of references to other standards or external conditions; that which is universally valid; that which is not relative, conditional, qualified or mitigated.
- Often one is dealing not with absolutes (complete stability) but with relative differences in rate (see below). — 2012
That which is totally unconditioned, unrestricted, pure, perfect, or complete; that which can be thought of without relation to others.
•
A realm which exists without reference to anything else; that which can be imagined purely by itself; absolute ego.
- Withdrawn as a Buddha he sat, watching the alien world from his perch in the absolute. — 1983
The whole of reality; the totality to which everything is reduced; the unity of spirit and nature; God.
•
A concentrated natural flower oil, used for perfumes; an alcoholic extract of a concrete.
- The main difference between these and those of indifferent quality is that the former contain flower absolutes in fairly large proportion and the latter either an insignificant quantity or […] — 2019
In a plane, the two imaginary circular points at infinity; in space of three dimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.

forms

Absolutes · absolutes · absoluter · more absolute · absolutest · most absolute

Phrases with absolute

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