English Dictionary

ABSTRACTED

Pronunciation (US): Play  (GB): Play

IPA (US): 

 Dictionary entry overview: What does abstracted mean? 

ABSTRACTED (adjective)
  The adjective ABSTRACTED has 1 sense:

1. lost in thought; showing preoccupationplay

  Familiarity information: ABSTRACTED used as an adjective is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


ABSTRACTED (adjective)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Lost in thought; showing preoccupation

Synonyms:

absent; absentminded; abstracted; scatty

Context example:

the scatty glancing quality of a hyperactive but unfocused intelligence

Similar:

inattentive (showing a lack of attention or care)

Derivation:

abstractedness (preoccupation with something to the exclusion of all else)


 Context examples 


That he laid his other hand upon the Doctor's arm, causing him to look up with an abstracted air.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

John Horner, a plumber, was accused of having abstracted it from the lady’s jewel-case.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This is generally of type feature but can be specified as reporters or compositeSequence for arrays that are abstracted from a physical array.

(Design Element, NCI Thesaurus)

As I sat there, fingering the cards in an abstracted way, some chance led me to observe the small needle-pricks which you have just felt.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Nobody knew where the evening went to, for Hannah skillfully abstracted the babies at an early hour, nodding like two rosy poppies, and Mr. Laurence went home to rest.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The purse I found, but its contents, with the exception of the small silver, had been abstracted.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He replied not: he seemed serious—abstracted; he sighed; he half-opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Is there a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, we will say, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed—the word is passed to the Professor, the matter is organized and carried out.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Every now and then, by an effort, he would throw off the impression, and talk as if the matter were clear, but then his doubts would settle down upon him again, and his knitted brows and abstracted eyes would show that his thoughts had gone back once more to the great dining-room of the Abbey Grange, in which this midnight tragedy had been enacted.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They were indeed excellent in two sciences for which I have great esteem, and wherein I am not unversed; but, at the same time, so abstracted and involved in speculation, that I never met with such disagreeable companions.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"Rats desert a sinking ship." (English proverb)

"If the thought is good, your place and path are good; if the thought is bad, your place and path are bad." (Bhutanese proverb)

"Whatever you sow, that's what you'll reap." (Armenian proverb)

"New brooms sweep clean" (Dutch proverb)



ALSO IN ENGLISH DICTIONARY:


© 2000-2023 AudioEnglish.org | AudioEnglish® is a Registered Trademark | Terms of use and privacy policy
Contact