1658, Samuel Hoard,God[']s Love to Mankind, Manifested, by disprooving hisabsolute decree for their damnation:
2005,Names, volume53, page238:
While Americans enjoy an almostabsolute freedom to name their children whatever they please, in Germany the State (as public guardian of the good of the child) restricts parents [...]
[…] the moreabsolute the ruler, the moreabsolute the revolution will be which replaces him.
Free fromimperfection,perfect,complete; especially, perfectly embodying a quality in its essential characteristics or to its highest degree.[first attested around 1400][2]
absolute purity,absolute liberty
1667,John Milton, “Book VIII”, inParadise Lost.[…], London:[…] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker[…];[a]nd by Robert Boulter[…];[a]nd Matthias Walker,[…],→OCLC; republished asParadise Lost in Ten Books:[…], London: Basil Montagu Pickering[…],1873,→OCLC:
Soabsolute she seems, / And in herself complete.
1599, William Shakespeare,Henry V:
Indeed, my lord, it is a mostabsolute and excellent horse.
The growth and acceptance of this idea followed Amartya Sen's theory of exchange entitlements, which suggested that famines occur not from anabsolute lack of food but from people's inability to obtain access to that food.
1862,The Solicitors' Journal and Reporter, volume 6, page365:
Yet if the register is not to beabsolute evidence of proprietorship, it is clear that some investigation of title would still be necessary.
1913,International Record of Medicine and General Practice Clinics:
[...] 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 symptoms.
2021,HM Land Registry Practice Guide 26:
Unless the determined lease to which the easements relate has been registered with titleabsolute and the easements have been entered without qualification in the register for that title, evidence must be lodged to prove [...]
(archaic) Certain; free from doubt or uncertainty (e.g. a person, opinion or prediction).[first attested in the early 1600s][2]
The colour of my hair—he cannot tell, Or answers "dark," at random,—while, be sure, He'sabsolute on the figure, live or ten, Of my last subscription.
(especially philosophy)Fundamental,ultimate,intrinsic; not relative; independent of references or relations to other things or standards.[first attested in the late 1700s]
the doctrine thatabsolute knowledge of things is possible; anabsolute principle
Absolute rights and duties are such as pertain to man in a state of nature as contradistinguished fromrelative rights and duties, or such as pertain to him in his social relations.
(grammar) 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".[first attested around 1350 to 1470]
(of an adjective or possessive pronoun) Lacking a modifiedsubstantive, like "hungry" in "feed the hungry".[first attested around 1350 to 1470]
(of a comparative or superlative) Expressing a relative term without a definite comparison, like "older" in "an older person should be treated with respect".[first attested around 1350 to 1470]
(of an adjective form)Positive; not graded (not comparative or superlative).
1991,English Grammar, 3rd edition:
Even when theabsolute form of an adverb ends in-ly, the comparative and superlative are identical with the corresponding forms of the adjective:badly, worse, worst.
(of a usually transitive verb) Having nodirect object, like "kill" in "if looks could kill".[first attested around 1350 to 1470][2]
(of Celtic languages) Being or pertaining to aninflected verb that is not preceded by any number ofparticles or compounded with apreverb.
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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 notrelative, conditional, qualified or mitigated.[First attested in the mid 19th century.][2]
moralabsolutes
1944, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs,World Freedom of Press and Radio, Editorials Submitted...: Senate Concurrent Resolution 50, Senate Concurrent Resolution 52, Senate Concurrent Resolution 53, House Concurrent Resolution 97, page30:
There is a well-known generalization that human rights come before property rights.[…] Unqualifiedabsolutes like these do not contain the truth as tested by human experience. What we do say is that human rights and property rights are related to one another, are intertwined with one another, work with and play upon one another.
1987, Harold Bloom,Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Chelsea House Pub:
But if the psychoanalytic mood seems gloomy or pretentious, one may merely think of Anna as a person who comes to deal inabsolutes: unconditional demands, total fears, extremities of power and subservience,[…]
2002, Jordan Zarren, MSW, DAHB, Jordan I. Zarren, Bruce N. Eimer,Brief Cognitive Hypnosis: Facilitating the Change of Dysfunctional Behavior, Springer Publishing Company,→ISBN, page97:
Notice the use of unconditionalabsolutes in each of these statements. They are the wordsalways,never, andforever. The illusion ofabsolutes is the ultimate pathological double bind. Yet the onlyabsolute is that there are noabsolutes.
2010, Joshua K. Hildebrandt,The Knowledge of Good and Evil: Who Decides What Is Morally Right and Wrong?, AuthorHouse,→ISBN, page 9:
This is important to understand, for when we see that the knowledge of good and evil is anabsolute, we realize we can have absolutely no say in what it is or is not. Pause for a moment and consider that. Mathematicians work inabsolutes.
2010, Klaus Brinkmann,Idealism Without Limits: Hegel and the Problem of Objectivity, Springer Science & Business Media,→ISBN, page265:
The reason is that we are confronted here with a genuine moral dilemma, i.e. a clash of two moral absolutes – the unconditional right to protection of the fetus from the point of fertilization; and the unconditional protection of the right to choose of the pregnant woman.
2012, P. Katsoyannis,The Chemistry of Polypeptides: Essays in Honor of Dr. Leonidas Zervas, Springer Science & Business Media,→ISBN, page132:
Often one is dealing not withabsolutes (complete stability) but with relative differences in rate (see below).
2016, I. Unah,The Supreme Court in American Politics, Springer,→ISBN, page187:
When discussing these concepts, it is unreasonable to expectabsolutes. Complete impact, complete compliance with Court decisions, and complete implementation are a myth even for the most admired Supreme Court decisions.
(geometry) In a plane, the two imaginary circular points atinfinity; in space of threedimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.
(philosophy, usually capitalized, usually preceded by "the") 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 theabsolute.
(philosophy, usually capitalized, usually preceded by "the") The whole of reality; the totality to which everything is reduced; the unity ofspirit andnature;God.
1948, Ernest Guenther,The Essential Oils: History, origin in plants, production, analysis:
Complete concentration in a vacuum still at low temperature results in a concentrated flower oil, free from alcohol, the so-calledabsolute of enfleurage. The crudeabsolutes of enfleurage are usually of dark color and, because of their fat content, […]
2019, William A. Poucher,Perfumes, Cosmetics and Soaps: The Production, Manufacture and Application of Perfumes: Volume 2,→ISBN, page57:
The main difference between these and those of indifferent quality is that the former contain flowerabsolutes in fairly large proportion and the latter either an insignificant quantity or […]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
“absolute”, inCharlton T. Lewis (1891)An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
"absolute", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’sGlossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
