What's the difference between abstract and formal?

Abstract


Definition:

  • (a.) Withdraw; separate.
  • (a.) Considered apart from any application to a particular object; separated from matter; existing in the mind only; as, abstract truth, abstract numbers. Hence: ideal; abstruse; difficult.
  • (a.) Expressing a particular property of an object viewed apart from the other properties which constitute it; -- opposed to concrete; as, honesty is an abstract word.
  • (a.) Resulting from the mental faculty of abstraction; general as opposed to particular; as, "reptile" is an abstract or general name.
  • (a.) Abstracted; absent in mind.
  • (a.) To withdraw; to separate; to take away.
  • (a.) To draw off in respect to interest or attention; as, his was wholly abstracted by other objects.
  • (a.) To separate, as ideas, by the operation of the mind; to consider by itself; to contemplate separately, as a quality or attribute.
  • (a.) To epitomize; to abridge.
  • (a.) To take secretly or dishonestly; to purloin; as, to abstract goods from a parcel, or money from a till.
  • (a.) To separate, as the more volatile or soluble parts of a substance, by distillation or other chemical processes. In this sense extract is now more generally used.
  • (v. t.) To perform the process of abstraction.
  • (a.) That which comprises or concentrates in itself the essential qualities of a larger thing or of several things. Specifically: A summary or an epitome, as of a treatise or book, or of a statement; a brief.
  • (a.) A state of separation from other things; as, to consider a subject in the abstract, or apart from other associated things.
  • (a.) An abstract term.
  • (a.) A powdered solid extract of a vegetable substance mixed with sugar of milk in such proportion that one part of the abstract represents two parts of the original substance.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) For dipeptides containing the amino terminal residues glycine, alanine and phenylalanine, abstraction of the hydrogen from the carbon adjacent to the peptide nitrogen was the major process leading to the spin-adducts.
  • (2) The death certificates were abstracted; all deaths under age 60 and a 20% sample of deaths 60 and older were examined.
  • (3) They are most commonly described as conduct disordered and hyperactive, appear heir to a variety of deficits in verbal and abstract cognition, and perform more poorly in the academic environment.
  • (4) Actin also exhibited a clear dual wave pattern of transport that coincided well with that of tubulin, indicating that both actin and tubulin were the major components of both groups IV and V.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
  • (5) A mathematical model that abstracts the major features of the vegetative life cycle of Neurosopra crassa has been developed, and the action of selection in this model and various extensions of it is such as to maintain polymorphisms of vegetative incompatibility factors.
  • (6) Scott insisted he was an abstract painter in the way he felt Chardin was too: the pans and fruit were uninteresting in themselves; they were merely "the means of making a picture", which was a study in space, form and colour.
  • (7) Neuropsychological functioning in 90 male and female alcoholics and 65 peer controls was examined using both accuracy and time measures for four basic types of neuropsychological functioning: verbal skills, learning and memory, problem-solving and abstracting, and perceptual-motor skills.
  • (8) 131 cases of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) among infants born in the Municipality of Copenhagen during 1956--1971 were analysed on the basis of data collected prospectively by the infant health visitors and abstracted from police reports.
  • (9) Case abstract data are routinely collected by hospital abstracting services, peer review organizations, and some state agencies.
  • (10) 260, 9265-9271] and possibly electron abstraction-water addition.
  • (11) All 546 patients were surveyed prospectively, using the Health Assessment Questionnaire and information abstracted from hospital records.
  • (12) From the patients' performance we make the following theoretical claims: that some arithmetic facts are stored in the form of individual fact representations (e.g., 9 x 4 = 36), whereas other facts are stored in the form of a general rule (e.g., 0 x N = 0); that arithmetic fact retrieval is mediated by abstract internal representations that are independent of the form in which problems are presented or responses are given; that arithmetic facts and calculation procedures are functionally independent; and that calculation algorithms may include special-case procedures that function to increase the speed or efficiency of problem solving.
  • (13) Narrow paths weave among moss-covered ornate arches and towers on the 80-acre site, and huge abstract sculptures and staircases lead nowhere, but up to the sky.
  • (14) On the basis of information abstracted from case histories, 41 patients who had experienced epileptic seizures thought to be due either to treatment with psychiatric drugs or to withdrawal from sedative drugs were compared with a control group of patients.
  • (15) 11 (suppl 14) 331 (abstract)] [14] also indicates that sensitivity to 4-HC can be used to distinguish primitive progenitor cells from committed progenitor cells.
  • (16) Although these differences in kinetics suggest differences in control mechanism(s), the absence of I and T on the surface of NaCl-grown cells suggests that there is also a common regulatory link among H, S and L.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
  • (17) This is an important precedent, because hydrogen abstraction from carbon-10 is a critical step in the lipoxygenase-catalyzed synthesis of 8- and 12-hydroperoxy-eicosatetraenoates (HPETEs) and for the conversion of 5- and 15-HPETEs to leukotrienes.
  • (18) The correlations between Inability to Abstract and Autism before and after those scales that contributed significantly to the Rs had been partialed out also were calculated.
  • (19) For example, population spikes of "short" latency (3-4 or 4-5 ms, depending on the animal) exhibited only facilitation in response to interstimulus intervals of 1-4 ms.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
  • (20) The inward current caused by nicotine was unaffected by intracellular GTP gamma S.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Formal


Definition:

  • (n.) See Methylal.
  • (a.) Belonging to the form, shape, frame, external appearance, or organization of a thing.
  • (a.) Belonging to the constitution of a thing, as distinguished from the matter composing it; having the power of making a thing what it is; constituent; essential; pertaining to or depending on the forms, so called, of the human intellect.
  • (a.) Done in due form, or with solemnity; according to regular method; not incidental, sudden or irregular; express; as, he gave his formal consent.
  • (a.) Devoted to, or done in accordance with, forms or rules; punctilious; regular; orderly; methodical; of a prescribed form; exact; prim; stiff; ceremonious; as, a man formal in his dress, his gait, his conversation.
  • (a.) Having the form or appearance without the substance or essence; external; as, formal duty; formal worship; formal courtesy, etc.
  • (a.) Dependent in form; conventional.
  • (a.) Sound; normal.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We present the analysis both formally and in geometric terms and show how it leads to a general algorithm for the optimization of NMR excitation schemes.
  • (2) If Lagarde had been placed under formal investigation in the Tapie case, it would have risked weakening her position and further embarrassing both the IMF and France by heaping more judicial worries on a key figure on the international stage.
  • (3) The appointment of the mayor of London's brother, who formally becomes a Cabinet Office minister, is one of a series of moves designed to strengthen the political operation in Downing Street and to patch up the prime minister's frayed links with the Conservative party.
  • (4) Eleven per cent of the courses that responded provided no formal substance misuse training.
  • (5) However ITV deny that any approach or offer, formal or informal, has been made.
  • (6) The wives and girlfriends who were originally invited to accompany their playing partners on the World Cup tour have had their invitations formally rescinded.
  • (7) This formalism allows resolution of the intrinsic protein folding-unfolding parameters (enthalpy, entropy, and heat capacity changes) as well as the ligand interaction parameters (binding stoichiometry, enthalpy, entropy, and heat capacity changes).
  • (8) This demonstrates a considerable range in surgeons' attitudes to day surgery despite its formal endorsement by professional bodies, and identifies what are perceived as the organizational and clinical barriers to its wider introduction.
  • (9) Children as young as 18 months start by sliding on tiny skis in soft supple boots, while over-threes have more formal lessons in the snow playground.
  • (10) Britain and France formally announced this week they would abstain, along with Portugal and Bosnia.
  • (11) After the formal PIRC inquiry was triggered by the lord advocate, Frank Mulholland, Bayoh’s family said police gave them five different accounts of what had happened before eventually being told late on Sunday afternoon how he died.
  • (12) Instituut voor Sociale Geneeskunde, Vrije Universiteit (The process of directing self-care, informal and formal assistance).
  • (13) He was greeted in Kyoto by Abe, with the men dispensing with the formal handshake that starts most head of governments' greetings in favour of a full body hug.
  • (14) A formal notion of relatability is defined, specifying which physically given edges leading into discontinuities can be connected to others by interpolated edges.
  • (15) Formal audits of the continuing medical education activities of physicians licensed in Michigan were undertaken to assess compliance with a law mandating participation in 150 hours of continuing medical education each 3 years.
  • (16) His central focus was on the neutrality of government rules – or what he called (on p117), "the Rule of Law, in the sense of the rule of formal law, the absence of legal privileges of particular people designated by authority" – not the elimination of government rules: "The liberal argument is in favor of making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of coordinating human efforts, not an argument for leaving things just as they are."
  • (17) The Washington Post report is the latest in a flurry of unattributed articles suggesting that the Justice Department is unlikely to take up formal charges against Assange.
  • (18) The government will formally begin the sale of Royal Mail on Thursday by announcing its intention to float the 497-year-old postal service on the London Stock Exchange.
  • (19) His formal entry into the contest marks a key moment in the nascent race for the Republican nomination, which is set to be the most congested presidential primary either party has held since 1976.
  • (20) The formal results of the analysis show that when psychological considerations are incorporated into a state-dependent utility model, the normative results customarily obtained concerning value-of-life need to be qualified.