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A noun might have a literal (concrete) and also a figurative (abstract) meaning: "a brass key" and "the key to success"; "a block in the pipe" and "a mental block". Similarly, some abstract nouns have developed etymologically by figurative extension from literal roots (drawback, fraction, holdout, uptake).
In philosophy and the arts, a fundamental distinction exists between abstract and concrete entities. While there is no universally accepted definition, common examples illustrate the difference: numbers , sets , and ideas are typically classified as abstract objects, whereas plants , dogs , and planets are considered concrete objects.
Abstract labour and concrete labour refer to a distinction made by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It refers to the difference between human labour in general as economically valuable worktime versus human labour as a particular activity that has a specific useful effect within the (capitalist) mode of production .
The apparent plural form in English goes back to the Latin neuter plural mathematica , based on the Greek plural ta mathēmatiká (τὰ μαθηματικά) and means roughly "all things mathematical", although it is plausible that English borrowed only the adjective mathematic(al) and formed the noun mathematics anew, after the pattern of ...
Abstraction uses a strategy of simplification, wherein formerly concrete details are left ambiguous, vague, or undefined; thus effective communication about things in the abstract requires an intuitive or common experience between the communicator and the communication recipient. This is true for all verbal/abstract communication.
An abstract, high-level construal of an activity (e.g., "learning to speak French") may lead to a more positive evaluation of that activity than a concrete, low-level construal (e.g., "learning to conjugate the irregular French verb 'avoir ' "). Thus, CLT predicts that we will think about the value of the low-level construals when evaluating an ...
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language proposes two zones: early pre-head modifiers and residual pre-head modifiers. Early pre-head modifiers include cardinal and ordinal numbers numerals (e.g., two, second), superlative adjectives (e.g., largest, youngest), and primacy adjectives (e.g., key, primary). Residual pre-head modifiers include ...
A concrete number or numerus numeratus is a number associated with the things being counted, in contrast to an abstract number or numerus numerans which is a number as a single entity. For example, "five apples" and "half of a pie" are concrete numbers, while "five" and "one half" are abstract numbers.