ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED.]
1. Drawn off, withdrawn, removed; separate, apart from.
1660. R. Coke, Just. Vind., 3. The whole body of Geometry is of all Sciences most intelligible, and yet abstracted from all sensible matter.
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 463. The Evil one abstracted stood From his own evil, and for the time remained Stupidly good.
1736. Butler, Analogy, II. vii. 374. [A] single event, taken alone and abstracted from all such correspondence.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 237. The Provençal love-poetry was as abstracted from all sensuality as that of Petrarca.
2. Withdrawn from the contemplation of present objects; absent in mind.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med. (1656), II. § 11. Our grosser memories have then [in our dreams] so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story.
1731. A. Hill, Adv. to Poets, ix. For a Great Poet is, naturally, an abstracted thinker.
1824. Scott, St. Ron. Well (1868), xxx. 712. He walked on, sucking his cigar, and apparently in as abstracted a mood as Mr. Cargill himself.
1864. Skeat, trans. Uhland’s Poems, 170. And therefore let yon maiden take my place, Who sits so silent and abstracted there.
† 3. Separated from matter or from concrete embodiment, ideal; hence, abstruse, difficult. (Obs. replaced by ABSTRACT a. 4.)
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 30. The Faculties … are but abstracted Notions.
1648. Wilkins, Math. Mag., I. i. 4. The ancient Mathematicians did place all their learning in abstracted speculations.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 76, ¶ 2. It is natural to mean well, when only abstracted ideas of virtue are proposed to the mind.
1794. Sullivan, View of Nat., I. 111. The actual divisibility of matter, indeed, is a subject so very intricate and abstracted, that it can only be conjectured upon.
1801. Strutt, Sp. & Past., Introd. § 9. 11. The abstracted love of glory.
1823. Lamb, Elia (1865), Ser. I. i. 7. A newspaper was thought too refined and abstracted.
4. Presented in abstract; concentrated, epitomized. ? Obs.
1633. Massinger, Guardian, III. vi. The subtlety of all wantons, tho’ abstracted, Can show no seeming colour of excuse To plead in my defence.
