absolute

absolute, a.
  (ˈæbsəljuːt)
  [a. mid. Fr. absolut (mod. absolu), a 14th c. latinizing of OFr. asolu, assolu:—L. absolūt-um loosened, free, separate, acquitted, completed, etc.; pa. pple. of absolv-ĕre: see absolve. The senses were largely taken in 6–7 direct from L., in which the development of meaning had already taken place, so that they do not form a historical series in Eng.]
  Originally a pple. absolved, disengaged: then adj. disengaged or free from imperfection or qualification; from interference, connexion, relation, comparison, dependence; from condition, conditional forms of knowledge or thought. Formerly compared absoluter, -est.
  I. Detached, disengaged, unfettered.
  † 1. pple. Absolved, loosened, detached, disengaged (from). Obs.

c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. 175 Men sen it vtterly fre and absolut from alle necessite.

  † 2. Disengaged from all interrupting causes, untrammelled; hence, completely absorbed in any occupation. Obs.

1483 Caxton G. Leg. 197/1 She abode there as recluse..absolute in wakyng, in prayers, in fastynges and orysons.

  † 3. Disengaged from all accidental or special circumstances; essential, general. Obs.

1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. (1495) i. 5 The fader, the son, the holy ghost be thre persones by personall proprytees, but thabsolute propritees be comune to all thre persones.

  II. Absolute in quality or degree; perfect.
  4. Free from all imperfection or deficiency; complete, finished; perfect, consummate.

c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. 89 For þe nature of þinges ne token nat her bygynnyng of þinges amenused and inperfit, but it procediþ of þingus þat ben al hool, and absolut. 1550 Bullinger in Strype Eccl. Mem. II. 407 The most wise and absolute counsils. 1579 Lyly Euphues 123 A young man so absolute, as yat nothing may be added to his further perfection. 1602 Carew Cornwall 62 Captaine Hender, the absolutest man of war for precise obseruing martiall rules. 1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. v. i. 44 As shie, as graue, as iust, as absolute: As Angelo. 1615 Sandys Travels 207 Where mariners be English: who are the absolutest vnder heauen in their profession. 1627 Feltham Resolves (1677) i. xxvi. 46 It is not to any man given, absolutely to be absolute. 1643 Prynne Sov. Pow. Parl. Ded. a ii. b, One person of the exquisitest judgement,..deepest Policy, absolutest abilities. 1705 Stanhope Paraph. I. 49 The most absolute and perfect of all examples. 1875 Ruskin Lect. Art iii. 69 Two great masters of the absolute art of language, Virgil and Pope.

  5. a. Of degree: Complete, entire; in the fullest sense.

1574 tr. Marlorat's Apocalips 40 From whence should we fetch the rule of absolute perfection. 1592 Greene in Shaksp. Cent. Praise 2 Being an absolute Johannes fac totum. 1641 Milton Ch. Discip. (1851) i. 32 The honour of its absolute sufficiency. 1664 H. Power Exp. Philos. i. 3 These holes were not absolute perforations, but onley dimples. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. 897 Which yet is an Absolute Impossibility. 1792 Anec. of Pitt III. xliii. 154 The absolute necessity for making peace with America. 1862 A. Trollope Orley F. xvi. 127 This may with absolute strictness be the case. 1878 G. Macdonald Ann. Quiet Neighb. xviii. 356 Leaving me in absolute ignorance of how to interpret her.

  † b. spec. Of numbers, parts: complete. (Cf. Plin. Ep. 9. 38 liber numeris omnibus absolutus, a book complete in all its parts.) Obs.

1623 Heminge & Condell Pref. Shakesp., All the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued them. 1667 Milton P.L. viii. 421 And through all numbers absolute, though One.

  c. Of a decree or rule: see decree n. 4 b, rule n. 4 a.

1836, 1860 [see nisi]. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 638 Then the decree nisi and the King's Proctor to show cause why and, he failing to quash it, nisi was made absolute.

  6. Pure and simple, mere; in the strictest sense. absolute alcohol, i.e. perfectly free from water.

1563 Homilies (1640) ii. xxi. ii. 286 David was no common or absolute subject. 1677 Sir M. Hales Prim. Orig. Man. i. vi. 118 Duration without a thing that dureth..is the veriest, the absolutest Nothing that can be. 1688 Clayton in Phil. Trans. XVII. 989 The Fishing Hauk is an absolute Species of a Kings-fisher. 1693 ― in Misc. Cur. (1708) III. 340 Musk-Rats, an absolute Species of Water-Rats, only having a curious Musky scent. 1834 E. Turner Elem. Chem. 877 The strongest alcohol..is called absolute alcohol, to denote its entire freedom from water. 1847 L. Hunt Men, Wom. & Bks. II. i. 8 The absolutest, and sometimes loathsomest, trash. 1871 B. Stewart Heat §26 To register still lower temperatures..a thermometer filled with Absolute Alcohol is employed.

  III. Absolute or detached in position or relation; independent.
  7. Of ownership, authority: Free from all external restraint or interference; unrestricted, unlimited, independent. absolute prize, one which becomes the absolute property of the winner, as distinguished from a challenge cup, etc. held till competed for anew.

1533 Tindale Sup. of the Lord 30 To dispute of God's almighty absolute power,..is great folly and no less presumption. 1576 Lambarde Peramb. Kent (1826) 263 The Bishops were never absolute owners heereof, till the time of King William Rufus. 1630 Prynne Anti-Arm. 115 It makes man an absolute, an independent creature. 1695 Anct. Const. Eng. 19 As for the King..he hath not absolute unlimited power of doing whatever he will. 1738 Wesley Psalms (1765) 89 Possest of absolute Command, Thou Truth and Mercy dost maintain. 1861 Times, 10 July, Lord Spencer offered an absolute prize cup worth 20l., to be competed for at 500 yards by the best shot of each of the three schools. 1862 H. Spencer First Princ. (1875) i. ii. §12. 38 Thus the first cause must be in every sense perfect, complete, total: including within itself all power, and transcending all law, Or to use the established word, it must be absolute.

  8. Hence, having absolute power, governing absolutely; unlimited by a constitution or the concurrent authority of a parliament; arbitrary, despotic.

1612 Drayton Poly-olbion xi. 178 Nor could time euer bring In all the seauen-fold rule an absoluter King. 1625 Bacon Ess. xix. 80 To depresse them [nobles] may make a King more Absolute, but less safe. 1735–8 Bolingbroke Dissn. on Parties 160 Absolute Monarchy is Tyranny; but absolute Democracy is Tyranny and Anarchy both. 1756 Burke Vind. Nat. Soc. Wks. I. 46 Republicks have many things in the spirit of absolute monarchy. 1775 Sheridan Reading 353 Our constitution is made up of a due mixture of the three species of government, being partly monarchical, partly republican, and partly absolute. 1876 Freeman Norm. Conq. I. iii. 114 An able king is practically absolute.

  9. Standing out of (the usual) grammatical relation or syntactic construction with other words, as in the ablative absolute. The absolute form of a word: that in which it is not inflected to indicate relation to other words in a sentence. Also absolute clause, absolute comparative, absolute construction, absolute superlative.
  ¶ The absolute case in English was formerly the Dative or Instrumental: it is now the Nominative.

1527 Whitinton Vulg. 3 Somtyme it is put in the case of the ablatyue case absolute. 1594 Blundevil Exerc. (ed. 7) i. xvi. 41 The Absolute [Numbers] are simply pronounced without having any relation to any other number, measure, or quantity, as 2, 3, 4, &c. 1612 Brinsley Pos. Parts (1669) 77 The Ablative case absolute. What mean you by absolute? A. Without other government. 1751 Harris Hermes (1841) 142 All existence is either absolute or qualified: absolute, as when we say, B is; qualified, as when we say, B is an animal. 1859 Sir W. Hamilton Metaphysic II. xxxvi. 330 The child commences, like the savage, by employing only isolated words in place of phrases; he commences by taking verbs and nouns only in their absolute state. 1862 E. Adams Elements Eng. Lang. (ed. 2) 178 This A.S. dative was the origin of the absolute construction in English. 1889 M. Callaway Absol. Pple. in Anglo-Saxon vii. 51 The notions usually expressed by an absolute clause in Latin are habitually denoted otherwise in Anglo-Saxon. Ibid. The absolute construction is not an organic idiom of the Anglo-Saxon language. 1904 Onions Adv. Eng. Syntax §61a, Absolute Clauses are clauses in which the Predicate is formed with a Participle instead of a Finite Verb, and which are equivalent in meaning to Adverb Clauses of Time, Reason, Condition, or Concession, or to an Adverbial Phrase expressing Attendant Circumstance. Ibid. §61b, The Absolute construction seems in all periods to have been felt to be foreign to the genius of English. 1931 Curme Syntax 508 The absolute comparative is not as common as the absolute superlative..higher education; a better-class café.

  10. Viewed without relation to, or comparison with, other things of the same kind; considered only in its relation to space or existence as a whole, or to some permanent standard; real, actual; opposed to relative and comparative.
  ¶ Superlative absolute, that which expresses a very high degree of quality, as distinct from stating that it is the highest of a set compared together (Superlative relative).

1666 Boyle in Phil. Trans. I. 239 The Absolute or Comparative height of mountains. 1753 Johnson Adventurer No. 3 Wks. 1787 IX. 110 We find in it absolute misery, but happiness only comparative. 1785 Reid Intell. Pow. Man 293 This space therefore which is unlimited and immoveable, is called by Philosophers absolute space. 1822 J. Imison Sci. & Art I. 447 Absolute motion is the actual motion that bodies have, independent of each other, and only with regard to the parts of space. 1878 Huxley Physiogr. 68 It is not so much the absolute quantity of moisture in the air as its relative humidity.

  IV. Free from condition or mental limitation; unconditioned.
  † 11. Of persons and things: Free from all doubt or uncertainty; positive, perfectly certain, decided. Sometimes adv. positively. Obs.

1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. iii. i. 5 Be absolute for death. 1604 Rowlands Looke to It 14 Thou that wilt vow most absolute to know, That which thy conscience knowes thou neuer knew. 1611 Shakes. Cymb. iv. ii. 106 I am absolute 'Twas very Cloten. 1662 R. Mathew Unl. Alch. §92. 160 He would warrant my recovery..he commended it as one of the most absolute things in the World. 1676 Sir C. Cotterell Cassandra vi. 561 'Twill suffice to confirm me absolute in the opinion I have of thy Vertue.

  12. a. Of statements: Free from conditions or reservations; unreserved, unqualified, unconditional.

1625–49 Charles I. Wks. 294 My thoughts were sincere and absolute without any sinister ends. 1664 H. More Myst. Iniq. 89 That it is not an Absolute, Inconditionate Promise to the Whole is plain. 1736 Butler Anal. ii. vii. 363 Some of these promises are conditional, some are as absolute, as anything can be expressed. 1832 J. Austin Lect. Jurispr. (1879) I. xii. 357 Where an obligation is absolute there is no right with which it correlates.

  b. esp. in Logic.

1736 Butler Anal. i. vi. 104 The Question..is not absolute,..but hypothetical. 1860 Thomson Laws of Thought 297 With the exception of the last case it would be impossible to frame an absolute proposition. 1870 Bowen Logic v. 127 In respect to the Relation of the Predicate to the Subject, Judgments are divided into simple or absolute, and conditional.

  13. Metaph. Existing without relation to any other being; self-existent; self-sufficing.

1858 Mansel Bamp. Lect. (ed. 4) ii. 30 By the Absolute is meant that which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other being. 1869 J. Martineau Ess. II. 269 Schelling has vindicated the possibility of knowing the absolute. 1875 H. E. Manning Holy Ghost xii. 325 There has sprung up..a school of men who tell us that the Absolute is unknowable, and that we can therefore know nothing of God.

  14. Metaph. Capable of being thought or conceived by itself alone; unconditioned.

1853 Sir W. Hamilton Discuss. App. i. To Cusa we can indeed articulately trace, word and thing, the recent philosophy of the Absolute. 1856 Ferrier Inst. Metaph. 370 Whatever can be known (or conceived) out of relation, that is to say, without any correlative being necessarily known (or conceived) along with it, is the known Absolute. Ibid. (ed. 2) 10 Another phantom is a mask, or rather a whole toy-shop of masks, which philosophers have been pleased to call the ‘Absolute’; but what they exactly mean by this name—what it is that is under these trappings,—neither those who run down the incognito, nor those who speak it fair, have ever condescended to inform us.

  15. Metaph. Considered independently of its being subjective or objective.

1809–10 Coleridge Friend (ed. 3) III. 212 The absolute is neither singly that which affirms, nor that which is affirmed; but the identity and living copula of both. 1858 R. A. Vaughan Ess. & Rev. I. 57 Schelling pronounced the subject and object identical in the absolute. 1860 ― Ho. w. Myst. (ed. 2) I. 213 Shake off that dream of personality, and you will see that good and evil are identical in the Absolute.

  ¶ In the last three uses the word approaches the character of a substantive, as the name of a metaphysical conception: the Absolute, i.e. that which is absolute.
  16. In specific combinations with ns., as absolute contraband, absolute drought, absolute initials, absolute majority, absolute zero, etc. (see the ns.); also absolute address Computing, an actual address, as determined by the hardware of a computer; an address expressed in machine language; cf. relative address s.v. relative a. 9; absolute altitude Aeronaut., the altitude of an aircraft above the surface of the earth over which it is flying; hence absolute altimeter, absolute height; absolute ceiling Aeronaut. (see quot. 1950; cf. ceiling vbl. n. 6 b); absolute error, the difference between the actual value of a measurement or other quantity and the number that is assigned to it; absolute humidity (see quot. 1946); absolute magnitude Astr., the magnitude of a star if at a standard distance of 10 parsecs; absolute music, self-dependent instrumental music without literary or other extraneous suggestions (opp. programme music); hence absolute musician; absolute pitch Mus., (a) a fixed standard of pitch determined by the rate of vibration (see pitch n.² 23); (b) used of the ability to recognize or reproduce the pitch of a note; absolute temperature Physics, temperature calculated from the scale associated with the thermodynamic experiments of Lord Kelvin (1824–1907), and based on an absolute zero (see zero n. 3) of approx. -273·16°C.; hence absolute (temperature) scale; absolute unit (see quot. 1940); absolute value Math., (a) of a real number, its value irrespective of its sign—called also numerical value, or modulus; (b) of any complex number x+ iy, the positive square root of x² + y²—called also modulus (Webster, 1934) (see modulus 2 c).

[1949 Math. Tables & other Aids Computation III. 541 The provision of extra binary digits in the coding as an indication of whether the corresponding address is to be taken as an absolute location in the memory [etc.].] 1951 Ibid. V. 234 An *absolute address is interpreted in the usual sense merely as a number identifying a specific memory location. 1956 Absolute address [see relative address s.v. relative a. 9]. 1970 O. Dopping Computers & Data Processing xix. 308 In an object program, every data cell is identified by means of its absolute address which is irrelevant to the problem and difficult for the programmer to remember. 1983 Your Computer (Austral.) Aug. 25/1 If a program is edited, all the absolute addresses are changed.

1941 Aeronautics Mar. 65/2 *Absolute altimeter. The instrument operates through a radio transmitter which..sends out a radio wave so that it is reflected back from the earth... The elapsed time for the circuit of the wave is converted into absolute altitude.

1934 Aircraft Engin. June 162/2 ‘*Absolute altitude’ seems a curiously pretentious, and indeed misleading, term for the height of an aircraft above the earth.

1920 Flight 9 Sept. 980/2 Characteristics of the Martin torpedo 'plane are: *Absolute ceiling..10,000 ft. 1950 Gloss. Aeronaut. Terms (B.S.I.) i. 25 Absolute ceiling, the height at which the rate of climb of an aircraft would be zero in standard atmosphere under specified conditions.

1923 Glazebrook Dict. Appl. Physics IV. 580/2 (heading) *Absolute, relative, and proportional errors. 1968 Fox & Mayers Computing Methods for Scientists & Engineers iii. 45 It is not, however, connected with the corresponding growth of absolute error in the trial solutions. 1980 C. S. French Computer Sci. xxi. 127 Relative error = Absolute error/True Value.

1936 Aircraft Engin. Nov. 298/2 We cannot help wishing it were possible to define an *absolute height akin to absolute temperature.

1867 A. Buchan Handy Bk. Meteorol. 93 It may also be termed the *absolute humidity of the atmosphere. 1946 Humidity of the Air (B.S.I.) 3 Absolute humidity, the weight of water vapour present in unit volume of moist air, i.e. grains per cubic foot or grams per cubic metre.

1902 J. C. Kapteyn in Pbns. Kapteyn Astron. Lab. No. 11, p. 12 We further define the *absolute magnitude (M) of a star..as the apparent magnitude which that star would have if it was transferred to a distance from the sun corresponding to a parallax of 0{pp}·1. 1914 A. S. Eddington Stellar Movements viii. 170 Absolute magnitudes (magnitude at a distance of 10 parsecs).

1890 G. B. Shaw London Music 1888–89 (1937) 329 The first sign of a reaction in favor of abstract or ‘*absolute’ music against the great Wagnerian cult of tone poetry and music drama. 1895 ― Sanity of Art (1908) 28 Instrumental music..designed to affect the hearer solely by its beauty of sound and grace and ingenuity of pattern. This is the art which Wagner called absolute music. 1946 Bacharach Brit. Mus. iii. 53 All the same The Planets are in no sense programme music. One must accept them as seven pieces of ‘absolute’ music.

1880 Grove Dict. Mus. II. 129/2 Instances of a similar kind from the works even of the most ‘*absolute’ musicians might be multiplied ad libitum.

1864 A. J. Ellis in Proc. R. Soc. XIII. 394 A compound tone will be represented by the *absolute pitch of its primary and the relative pitches of its partial tones. 1903 R. Hughes Mus. Guide I. 239/2 The vibration-number of a tone also gives it an absolute pitch according to the particular pitch accepted as the standard. 1914 A. E. Hull Mod. Harmony iv. 51 If the possession of the sense of absolute pitch is a sine quâ non for the proper reception of such music, then the circle of appreciation at present is narrowed down almost to vanishing-point. 1938 Oxf. Compan. Mus. 2/2 Sir Frederick Ouseley..was all his life remarkable for his sense of absolute pitch. At five he was able to remark, ‘Only think, papa blows his nose in G’.

1848 W. Thomson [Lord Kelvin] in Phil. Mag. XXXIII. 316 The characteristic property of the scale which I now propose is, that all degrees have the same value; that is, that a unit of heat descending from a body A at the temperature T° of this scale, to a body B at the temperature (T - 1)°, would give out the same mechanical effect, whatever be the number T. This may justly be termed an *absolute scale, since its characteristic is quite independent of the physical properties of any specific substance. 1852 J. P. Joule in Phil. Trans. R. Soc. i. 67, I take..a case in which the receiver C contains air of the atmospheric density, and of which the *absolute temperature is 849°·464 Fahr. or 390°·464 on the scale of Fahrenheit's thermometer. 1857 W. Thomson in Trans. R. Soc. Edin. 1854 XXI. 125 The determination of the absolute temperatures of the fixed points is then to be effected by means of observations indicating the economy of a perfect thermo-dynamic engine, with the higher and the lower respectively as the temperatures of its source and refrigerator. 1884 Absolute temperature [see law n.1 17 c (b)]. 1958 Mansfield Element. Nucl. Physics i. 2 The absolute temperature scale..is related to the speed c of the molecules such that at absolute zero..all molecules are at rest.

1857 Proc. R. Soc. Edin. 1851 97 Taking ·02 as the electro-chemical equivalent of water in British *absolute units, the author has thus found 16300 as the electromotive force of an element of copper and bismuth. 1873 First Rep. Brit. Assoc. Comm. Selection Dynam. & Electr. Units §7, We accordingly recommend the general adoption of the Centimetre, the Gramme and the Second as the three fundamental units; and..that they be distinguished from ‘absolute’ units otherwise derived, by the letters ‘C.G.S.’ prefixed. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 3/1 Absolute unit, a unit which may be defined directly in terms of the fundamental units of length, mass, and time.

1907 O. Veblen Introd. Infinites. Analysis 14 The symbol {vb}x{vb}..indicates the ‘numerical’ or ‘*absolute’ value of x. 1909 Cent. Dict. Suppl. (s.v. number), Absolute value of a complex number, x = a + bi, is + (a2 + b2)½: denoted by {vb}x{vb}. Absolute value of a real number, a, its value taken positively: denoted by {vb}a{vb}. 1930 Durell & Robson Adv. Trigonom. 145, r is called the modulus, or sometimes the absolute value, of the complex number x + yi and is denoted by {vb}x + yi{vb} or by mod (x + yi). 1931 P. Dienes Taylor Series 48 We call the positive number {vb}√a2 + b2{vb} = {vb}a + bi{vb} the absolute value or modulus of a + bi.

  
  
  ______________________________
  
   ▸ absolute privilege n. Law unqualified immunity from litigation; spec. protection by immunity from civil or criminal proceedings in respect of an otherwise actionable statement made in the proceedings or reports of a legislature or judiciary (cf. privilege n. 2c).

1797 D. Hume Comm. on Law Scotl. II. 131 It may even be maintained, that an oath non memini, or nihil novi, has no *absolute privilege, when applied to such a case. 1844 G. W. Cooke Treat. Law of Defamation 60 The effect of this act appears to be, to give an absolute privilege to the circulation in bulk of all matter which has been printed by order of either house of parliament, and to let in the defendant to disprove the legal inference of malice which arises when libellous matter is disseminated in extracts or abstracts of such documents. 1869 Law Rep.: Queen's Bench 5 94 It is to be observed that this absolute privilege is not confined to the administration of justice in the superior courts, but it has been also applied in its fullest extent to judges of the county courts. 1978 N.Y. Times 28 Nov. 1/5 Neither the United States Constitution nor the state law designed to protect reporters and their sources gives reporters an absolute privilege to refuse information demanded by a defendant in a criminal trial. 2003 Nelson (N.Z.) Mail (Nexis) 17 July 9 Had..[he] chosen to only discuss the case in Parliament, there's not a court in the land which could have touched him, because of the absolute privilege that MPs have to say anything they like on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Oxford English Dictionary