absolute

Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.

Adjective

  1. 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, Names, volume 53, page 238:

    1. 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, George Gillespie, The Presbyterian's Armoury:

    2. 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.

      • The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, / With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed. - 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh:
      • […] the more absolute the ruler, the more absolute the revolution will be which replaces him. - 1962, Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, published 1990, page 155:
  2. Free from imperfection, perfect, complete; especially, perfectly embodying a quality in its essential characteristics or to its highest degree.
    • absolute purity, absolute liberty
    • So absolute she seems, / And in herself complete. - 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd...
    • Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse. - 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V:
  3. Pure, free from mixture or adulteration; unmixed.
    • absolute alcohol
  4. Complete, utter, outright; unmitigated, not qualified or diminished in any way.
    • an absolute denial of all charges
    • When caught, he told an absolute lie.
    • You're an absolute genius!
  5. 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, The Solicitors' Journal and Reporter, volume 6, page 365:
    • [...] 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...
    • 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...
  6. Certain; free from doubt or uncertainty (e.g. a person, opinion or prediction).
    • I am absolute ’twas very Cloten. - 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […]...
    • 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. - 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “(please specify either |book=1...
  7. 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.
  8. Independent of arbitrary units of measurement, standards, or properties; not comparative or relative.
    • 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. - 1903, Ice and Refrigeration, volume 24, page 49:
    • This new absolute temperature scale (also called the Kelvin scale) employs the SI unit of absolute temperature, the kelvin, […] - 2015, Raymond A. Serway, John W. Jewett, Physics for Scientists and Engineers, →ISBN:

    1. Having reference to or derived in the simplest manner from the fundamental units of mass, time, and length.

    2. Relating to the absolute temperature scale (based on absolute zero); kelvin.

  9. 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".

    1. (of a case form) 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.

    2. (of an adjective or possessive pronoun) Lacking a modified substantive, like "hungry" in "feed the hungry".

    3. (of a comparative or superlative) Expressing a relative term without a definite comparison, like "older" in "an older person should be treated with respect".

    4. (of an adjective form) 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, English Grammar, 3rd edition:

    5. (of a usually transitive verb) Having no direct object, like "kill" in "if looks could kill".

    6. (of Celtic languages) Being or pertaining to an inflected verb that is not preceded by any number of particles or compounded with a preverb.

      Antonyms: conjunct

  10. As measured using an absolute value.
    • absolute deviation
    • absolute square
    • mean absolute difference
  11. Indicating an expression that is true for all real numbers, or of all values of the variable; unconditional.
  12. Pertaining to a grading system based on the knowledge of the individual and not on the comparative knowledge of the group of students.

Origin

First attested around 1380. From Middle English absolut, from Middle French absolut, from Latin absolūtus (“unconditional; unfettered; completed”), perfect passive participle of absolvō (“loosen, set free, complete”), from ab (“away”) + solvo (“to loose”). Influenced in part by Old French absolu. Compare absolve.

Forms

more absolute absoluter most absolute absolutest abs. absolut

Synonyms

categorical unconditional unlimited unrestricted autocratic despotic independent of references relations to other things standards living

Antonyms

conditional limited antonym(s) of “independent of references relations to other things standards”

Related

absolution absoluteness absolutize absolutization

Derived

ablative absolute absolute address absolute advantage absolute alcohol absolute altimeter absolute altitude absolute assembler absolute blocking absolute ceiling absolute cinema absolute code absolute comparative absolute complement absolute constant absolute convergence absolute curvature absolute deviation absolute differential calculus absolute drought absolute endorsement absolute equation absolute error absolute fee simple absolute form

Noun

  1. 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.
    • moral absolutes
    • 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...
    • 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, […] - 1987,...
  2. In a plane, the two imaginary circular points at infinity; in space of three dimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.
  3. 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, Lawrence Durrell, Sebastian (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 1039:
  4. The whole of reality; the totality to which everything is reduced; the unity of spirit and nature; God.
  5. A concentrated natural flower oil, used for perfumes; an alcoholic extract of a concrete.
    • 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,...
    • 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, William A....

Forms

absolutes abs. absolut

Derived

dative absolute decree absolute degree absolute locative absolute