definition of the word absolute

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Absolute

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Latin absolutus (“‘unconditional’”), past participle of absolvere (“‘to loosen, to free, to complete’”). Compare French absolu. See absolve.

• IPA: /ˈæbsəˌluːt/, /ˌæbsəˈluːt/, SAMPA: /"{bs@%lu:t/, /%{bs@"lu:t/
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absolute (comparative more absolute or (rarely) absoluter, superlative most absolute or (rarely) absolutest)

1. Loosed from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional; as, absolute authority, monarchy, sovereignty, an absolute promise or command.
   • 1962, Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, (1990), page 155

     [T]he more absolute the ruler, the more absolute the revolution will be which replaces him.

2. Complete in itself; perfect; consummate; faultless.

   absolute perfection

   absolute beauty

   • So absolute she seems, And in herself complete. —John Milton
3. Viewed apart from modifying influences or without comparison with other objects; actual; real; — opposed to relative and comparative; as, absolute motion; absolute time or space.

   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.

4. Loosed from, or unconnected by, dependence on any other being; self-existent; self-sufficing.

   Note: In this sense God is called the Absolute by the Theist. The term is also applied by the Pantheist to the universe, or the total of all existence, as only capable of relations in its parts to each other and to the whole, and as dependent for its existence and its phenomena on its mutually depending forces and their laws.

5. Capable of being thought or conceived by itself alone; unconditioned; non-relative.

   Note: It is in dispute among philosophers whether the term, in this sense, is not applied to a mere logical fiction or abstraction, or whether the absolute, as thus defined, can be known, as a reality, by the human intellect.

   • To Cusa we can indeed articulately trace, word and thing, the recent philosophy of the absolute. —William Hamilton
6. (rare) Positive; clear; certain; not doubtful.
   • I am absolute ’t was very Cloten. —Shakespeare, Cymbeline, IV,ii
7. (rare) Authoritative; peremptory.
   • The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed. —Elizabeth Barrett Browning
8. (chemistry) Pure; unmixed; as, absolute alcohol.
9. (grammar) Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence in government; as, the case absolute. (See ablative absolute.)

• positive
• peremptory
• certain
• unconditional
• unlimited
• unrestricted
• unqualified
• arbitrary
• despotic
• autocratic

• ablative absolute
• absolute curvature (geometry): that curvature of a curve of double curvature, which is measured in the osculating plane of the curve.
• absolute equation (astronomy): the sum of the optic and eccentric equations.
• absolute magnitude
• absolute majority
• absolute monarchy
• absolute music (music): music written for its own sake, with no direct reference to anything outside itself. It has no words and does not depict a story.
• absolute pitch
• absolute power
• absolute space (physics): space considered without relation to material limits or objects.
• absolute terms (algebra): such as are known, or which do not contain the unknown quantity.
• absolute temperature
• absolute value
• absolute zero

Definition from Wiktionary Content avaible with GNU Free Documentation License

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