absolute Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. 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
    • no mortal being can influence the absolute
  2. adjective perfect or complete or pure
    • absolute loyalty
    • absolute silence
    • absolute truth
    • absolute alcohol
  3. adjective satellite complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers
    sheer; rank; right-down; downright; out-and-out.
    • absolute freedom
    • an absolute dimwit
    • 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
  4. adjective satellite not limited by law
    • an absolute monarch
  5. adjective satellite expressing finality with no implication of possible change
    • an absolute guarantee to respect the nation's authority
  6. adjective satellite not capable of being violated or infringed
    infrangible; inviolable.
    • infrangible human rights

WordNet

Ab"so*lute adjective
Etymology
L. absolutus, p. p. of absolvere: cf. F. absolu. See Absolve.
Definitions
  1. Loosed from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional; as, absolute authority, monarchy, sovereignty, an absolute promise or command; absolute power; an absolute monarch.
  2. Complete in itself; perfect; consummate; faultless; as, absolute perfection; absolute beauty.
    So absolute she seems, And in herself complete. 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. ✍ 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. ✍ It is in dispute among philosopher 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. Sir W. Hamilton.
  6. Positive; clear; certain; not doubtful. R.
    I am absolute 't was very Cloten. Shak.
  7. Authoritative; peremptory. R.
    The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed. Mrs. Browning.
  8. (Chem.) Pure; unmixed; as, absolute alcohol.
  9. (Gram.) Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence in government; as, the case absolute. See Ablative absolute, under Ablative. Syn. -- Positive; peremptory; certain; unconditional; unlimited; unrestricted; unqualified; arbitrary; despotic; autocratic.
Ab"so*lute noun
Definitions
  1. (Geom.) In a plane, the two imaginary circular points at infinity; in space of three dimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.

Webster 1913