> as lemmas

1592 A. Willet Synopsis Papismi 597 But in the abstract it is great blasphemie to say; that the Godhead of Christ died, was buried, or rose againe.

1628 T. Spencer Art of Logick xxviii. 141 Iustice in the abstract, is nothing.

1699 Royal Sufferer: Man. of Medit. & Devotions 50 Not only Vain, but Vanity it self, in the Abstract.

1704 J. Harris Lexicon Technicum I. (at cited word) We say a Thing is considered Per se, when 'tis taken in the Abstract, and without Connexion with other things.

1792 W. Jones Diss. & Misc. Pieces I. xiv. 394 Polyandria, in the abstract, never occurs, and Polyandrion means a publick cemetery.

a1807 J. Opie Lect. on Painting (1809) 57 Learn to see Nature and beauty in the abstract, and rise to general and transcendental truth.

1819 W. Irving Sketch Bk. i. 49 She has no idea of poverty but in the abstract: she has only read of it in poetry.

1888 J. Bryce Amer. Commonw. III. xciv. 318 The two great national parties..denounce monopolism in the abstract.

1937 A. Huxley Ends & Means xii. 199 In the abstract this scheme seems good enough; but in practice it just doesn't work.

1967 Brit. Jrnl. Psychiatry 113 318/1 It is customary..to cite the influence of changing social conditions—a concept easier to invoke in the abstract than to define in precise terms.

2005 Daily Tel. 17 Oct. 19/1 Forget the war, disregard the continuing occupation and instead ask, in the abstract, what kind of constitution Iraq ought to have.