The Collaborative International Dictionary
Abstract \Ab*stract"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Abstracted; p. pr. & vb. n. Abstracting.] [See Abstract, a.]
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To withdraw; to separate; to take away.
He was incapable of forming any opinion or resolution abstracted from his own prejudices.
--Sir W. Scott. -
To draw off in respect to interest or attention; as, his was wholly abstracted by other objects.
The young stranger had been abstracted and silent.
--Blackw. Mag. To separate, as ideas, by the operation of the mind; to consider by itself; to contemplate separately, as a quality or attribute.
--Whately.To epitomize; to abridge.
--Franklin.-
To take secretly or dishonestly; to purloin; as, to abstract goods from a parcel, or money from a till.
Von Rosen had quietly abstracted the bearing-reins from the harness.
--W. Black. (Chem.) To separate, as the more volatile or soluble parts of a substance, by distillation or other chemical processes. In this sense extract is now more generally used.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of abstract English)
Usage examples of "abstracting".
In the lesson on the rule for conversion of fractions to equivalent fractions with different denominators, the pupils could not possibly apperceive, or analyse, the examples as suggested under the head of selection, or analysis, without at the same time implicitly abstracting and generalizing.
Kitty, producing a paper bag and abstracting parkin, which she divided and the two of them shared.
Our Lord Jesus Christ who fasted forty days in the desert, the faithful observed the fast from Quadragesima Sunday until Easter Sunday, making forty days after abstracting the Sundays when the fast was broken but not the abstinence.
Money grew out of a system of abstracting conventions and has been subjected to a great variety of restrictions, monopolizations, and regulations.
If, abstracting altogether from the question of their value for the future spiritual life of the individual, we take them on their psychological side exclusively, so many peculiarities in them remind us of what we find outside of conversion that we are tempted to class them along with other automatisms, and to suspect that what makes the difference between a sudden and a gradual convert is not necessarily the presence of divine miracle in the case of one and of something less divine in that of the other, but rather a simple psychological peculiarity, the fact, namely, that in the recipient of the more instantaneous grace we have one of those Subjects who are in possession of a large region in which mental work can go on subliminally, and from which invasive experiences, abruptly upsetting the equilibrium of the primary consciousness, may come.
Adroitly abstracting en passant a piece of ten francs, Marcel went on his way rejoicing, touched a match to the fire ready-laid in the grate, and was nearing the door when, casting one casual parting glance at the bed, he became aware of a notable phenomenon: the snoring was going on lustily, but Bourke was watching him with both eyes wide and filled with interest.