Pronunciations (11)
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/ˈæb.sə.luːt/
Pronunciation notes
- UK
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/æb.səˈluːt/
Pronunciation notes
- UK
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/ˈæb.sə.ljuːt/
Pronunciation notes
- UK
- archaic
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/ˈap.sə.lʉwt/
Pronunciation notes
- British
- Southern
- Standard
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/ˈæb.səˌlut/
Pronunciation notes
- US
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/ˌæb.səˈlut/
Pronunciation notes
- US
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/ˈabsə(ˌ)l(j)uːt/
Pronunciation notes
- Canada
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/absəˈl(j)uːt/
Pronunciation notes
- Canada
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/absəˈlɪʊ̯t/
Pronunciation notes
- dialectal
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ˈæb.səˌluːt
Pronunciation notes
- GB
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ˈæb.səˌlut
Pronunciation notes
- US
Adjective
Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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 [...]
Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional. Unrestricted by laws, a constitution, or parliamentary or judicial or other checks; (legally) unlimited in power, especially if despotic.
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An absolute monarch is free from all forcible restraint, and so far as he is absolute[,] from all legal restraints of positive laws.
Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional. Unrestricted by laws, a constitution, or parliamentary or judicial or other checks; (legally) unlimited in power, especially if despotic. Characteristic of an absolutist ruler: domineering, peremptory.
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The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, / With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed.
[…] the more absolute the ruler, the more absolute the revolution will be which replaces him.
Free from imperfection, perfect, complete; especially, perfectly embodying a quality in its essential characteristics or to its highest degree.
- Examples
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absolute purity, absolute liberty
So absolute she seems, / And in herself complete.
More examples (1)
Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
Pure, free from mixture or adulteration; unmixed.
- Examples
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absolute alcohol
Complete, utter, outright; unmitigated, not qualified or diminished in any way.
- Examples
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an absolute denial of all charges
When caught, he told an absolute lie.
More examples (2)
You're an absolute genius!
The growth and acceptance of this idea followed Amartya Sen's theory of exchange entitlements, which suggested that famines occur not from an absolute lack of food but from people's inability to obtain access to that food.
Positive, certain; unquestionable; not in doubt.
- Examples
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Yet if the register is not to be absolute evidence of proprietorship, it is clear that some investigation of title would still be necessary.
More examples (2)
[...] and in the absence of other signs, or when these latter are inconclusive, it is extremely useful. But it is not, under any circumstances, absolute evidence of the syphilitic nature of a given symptom or set of symptoms.
Unless the determined lease to which the easements relate has been registered with title absolute and the easements have been entered without qualification in the register for that title, evidence must be lodged to prove [...]
Certain; free from doubt or uncertainty (e.g. a person, opinion or prediction).
Usage- Archaic
- Examples
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I am absolute ’twas very Cloten.
The colour of my hair—he cannot tell, Or answers "dark," at random,—while, be sure, He's absolute on the figure, live or ten, Of my last subscription.
Fundamental, ultimate, intrinsic; not relative; independent of references or relations to other things or standards.
Usage- especially
- Examples
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the doctrine that absolute knowledge of things is possible; an absolute principle
More examples (1)
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.
- Examples
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absolute velocity, absolute motion, absolute position
His experiments led him to infer that the boiling point of the substance is probably below 9 degrees absolute.
More examples (1)
This new absolute temperature scale (also called the Kelvin scale) employs the SI unit of absolute temperature, the kelvin, […]
Independent of arbitrary units of measurement, standards, or properties; not comparative or relative. Having reference to or derived in the simplest manner from the fundamental units of mass, time, and length.
Independent of arbitrary units of measurement, standards, or properties; not comparative or relative. Relating to the absolute temperature scale (based on absolute zero); kelvin.
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.
Usage- of a case form
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". Lacking a modified substantive, like "hungry" in "feed the hungry".
Usage- of an adjective or possessive pronoun
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". Expressing a relative term without a definite comparison, like "older" in "an older person should be treated with respect".
Usage- of a comparative or superlative
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". Positive; not graded (not comparative or superlative).
Usage- of an adjective form
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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.
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". Having no direct object, like "kill" in "if looks could kill".
Usage- of a usually transitive verb
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". Being or pertaining to an inflected verb that is not preceded by any number of particles or compounded with a preverb.
Usage- of Celtic languages
- Antonyms
As measured using an absolute value.
- Examples
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absolute deviation
absolute square
More examples (1)
mean absolute difference
Indicating an expression that is true for all real numbers, or of all values of the variable; unconditional.
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.
- Examples
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absolute music
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.
Usage- Formal
- postpositional
- Examples
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A freehold property is an estate in fee simple absolute in possession.
Absolved; free.
Usage- Obsolete
Noun
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.
- Examples
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moral absolutes
More examples (5)
There is a well-known generalization that human rights come before property rights. […] Unqualified absolutes like these do not contain the truth as tested by human experience. What we do say is that human rights and property rights are related to one another, are intertwined with one another, work with and play upon one another.
But if the psychoanalytic mood seems gloomy or pretentious, one may merely think of Anna as a person who comes to deal in absolutes: unconditional demands, total fears, extremities of power and subservience, […]
Notice the use of unconditional absolutes in each of these statements. They are the words always, never, and forever. The illusion of absolutes is the ultimate pathological double bind. Yet the only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
This is important to understand, for when we see that the knowledge of good and evil is an absolute, we realize we can have absolutely no say in what it is or is not. Pause for a moment and consider that. Mathematicians work in absolutes.
The reason is that we are confronted here with a genuine moral dilemma, i.e. a clash of two moral absolutes – the unconditional right to protection of the fetus from the point of fertilization; and the unconditional protection of the right to choose of the pregnant woman.
Often one is dealing not with absolutes (complete stability) but with relative differences in rate (see below).
More examples (1)
When discussing these concepts, it is unreasonable to expect absolutes. Complete impact, complete compliance with Court decisions, and complete implementation are a myth even for the most admired Supreme Court decisions.
In a plane, the two imaginary circular points at infinity; in space of three dimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.
A realm which exists without reference to anything else; that which can be imagined purely by itself; absolute ego.
Usage- capitalized
- usually
- Examples
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Withdrawn as a Buddha he sat, watching the alien world from his perch in the absolute.
The whole of reality; the totality to which everything is reduced; the unity of spirit and nature; God.
Usage- capitalized
- usually
A concentrated natural flower oil, used for perfumes; an alcoholic extract of a concrete.
- Examples
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More examples (2)
Complete concentration in a vacuum still at low temperature results in a concentrated flower oil, free from alcohol, the so-called absolute of enfleurage. The crude absolutes of enfleurage are usually of dark color and, because of their fat content, […]
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 […]
Adjective
perfect or complete or pure
- Antonyms
- Examples
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absolute loyalty
absolute silence
More examples (2)
absolute truth
absolute alcohol
complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers
- Examples
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absolute freedom
an absolute dimwit
More examples (7)
a downright lie
out-and-out mayhem
an out-and-out lie
a rank outsider
many right-down vices
got the job through sheer persistence
sheer stupidity
not limited by law
- Examples
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an absolute monarch
expressing finality with no implication of possible change
- Examples
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an absolute guarantee to respect the nation's authority
not capable of being violated or infringed
- Synonyms
- Examples
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infrangible human rights
Noun
something that is conceived or that exists independently and not in relation to other things; something that does not depend on anything else and is beyond human control; something that is not relative
- Broader terms
- Examples
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no mortal being can influence the absolute