The Collaborative International Dictionary
Idea \I*de"a\, n.; pl. Ideas. [L. idea, Gr. ?, fr. ? to see; akin to E. wit: cf. F. id['e]e. See Wit.]
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The transcript, image, or picture of a visible object, that is formed by the mind; also, a similar image of any object whatever, whether sensible or spiritual.
Her sweet idea wandered through his thoughts.
--Fairfax.Being the right idea of your father Both in your form and nobleness of mind.
--Shak.This representation or likeness of the object being transmitted from thence [the senses] to the imagination, and lodged there for the view and observation of the pure intellect, is aptly and properly called its idea.
--P. Browne. -
A general notion, or a conception formed by generalization.
Alice had not the slightest idea what latitude was.
--L. Caroll. -
Hence: Any object apprehended, conceived, or thought of, by the mind; a notion, conception, or thought; the real object that is conceived or thought of.
Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or as the immediate object of perception, thought, or undersanding, that I call idea.
--Locke. -
A belief, option, or doctrine; a characteristic or controlling principle; as, an essential idea; the idea of development.
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
--Johnson.What is now ``idea'' for us? How infinite the fall of this word, since the time where Milton sang of the Creator contemplating his newly-created world, ``how it showed . . . Answering his great idea,'' to its present use, when this person ``has an idea that the train has started,'' and the other ``had no idea that the dinner would be so bad!''
--Trench. -
A plan or purpose of action; intention; design.
I shortly afterwards set off for that capital, with an idea of undertaking while there the translation of the work.
--W. Irving. A rational conception; the complete conception of an object when thought of in all its essential elements or constituents; the necessary metaphysical or constituent attributes and relations, when conceived in the abstract.
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A fiction object or picture created by the imagination; the same when proposed as a pattern to be copied, or a standard to be reached; one of the archetypes or patterns of created things, conceived by the Platonists to have excited objectively from eternity in the mind of the Deity.
Thence to behold this new-created world, The addition of his empire, how it showed In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair, Answering his great idea.
--Milton.Note: ``In England, Locke may be said to have been the first who naturalized the term in its Cartesian universality. When, in common language, employed by Milton and Dryden, after Descartes, as before him by Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Hooker, etc., the meaning is Platonic.''
--Sir W. Hamilton.Abstract idea, Association of ideas, etc. See under Abstract, Association, etc.
Syn: Notion; conception; thought; sentiment; fancy; image; perception; impression; opinion; belief; observation; judgment; consideration; view; design; intention; purpose; plan; model; pattern.
Usage: There is scarcely any other word which is subjected to such abusive treatment as is the word idea, in the very general and indiscriminative way in which it is employed, as it is used variously to signify almost any act, state, or content of thought.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (&lit abstract idea English) 2 (context metaphysics English) An idea separated from a complex object, or from other ideas which naturally accompany it; as the solidity of marble when contemplated apart from its color or figure.
Usage examples of "abstract idea".
I was determined never to visit Madame Orio's house, and on that very day I held an argument in metaphysics, in which I contended that any being of whom we had only an abstract idea, could only exist abstractedly, and I was right.
The typical instance of an abstract idea, yet preoccupying the mind with all the colour and circumstance of the relationship of person to person, the idea of Beauty, conveyed into the entire theory of ideas, the associations which belong properly to such relationships only.
Suck and gulp are the activating principles behind the abstract idea of want.
I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above described.
And it is equally impossible for me to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving, and which is neither swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear.
Symbol: The representation within a mind of a complex concept or entity--such as a person, a class of objects, or an abstract idea.
The better informed among the sex, however, made light of this assertion, for however willing they were (and they were very willing) to do full justice to the handsome face and figure of the proprietor, they held the countenance of the dark gentleman in the window to be an exquisite and abstract idea of masculine beauty, realised sometimes, perhaps, among angels and military men, but very rarely embodied to gladden the eyes of mortals.
The idea of debt is one which cannot be conveyed by physical motions at all, because it is an abstract idea.
He is a Transient Being, one of the never-born, the soulless, the stalkers on the edge of reality, a living personification of an abstract idea.
In Tensegrity, this group is called The Heat Series, in order to make it more congruous with the aims of Tensegrity, which are extremely pragmatic on the one hand and extremely abstract on the other, such as the practical utilization of energy for well-being coupled with the abstract idea of how that energy is obtained.
Nandi seemed to want some kind of absolution, but at the moment Paul could not make much sense of such an abstract idea.