Abstract means existing as an idea or concept rather than as something you can touch or see. Love, justice, courage, and freedom are all abstract concepts because you can't hold them in your hand or point to them in a room, even though they're very real and powerful.

When you're working with abstract ideas, you're thinking about qualities, principles, or feelings rather than concrete objects. A teacher might tell you to make your writing less abstract by adding specific examples: instead of just saying “the weather was bad,” describe the rain hammering the windows and the wind rattling the doors.

In art, abstract describes paintings or sculptures that don't try to look like real objects. An abstract painting might use swirls of color and interesting shapes to express a feeling or idea, rather than painting a recognizable tree or person. Artists like Wassily Kandinsky created abstract art to show emotions and concepts that realistic painting couldn't capture.

As a noun, the word can also mean a summary of something longer. Scientists write abstracts of their research papers to give readers the main points without making them read the whole study.

The opposite of abstract is concrete, which refers to things you can experience directly with your senses: a basketball, a thunderstorm, or a chocolate chip cookie.