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Principle vs Abstract - What's the difference?

principle | abstract |

As nouns the difference between principle and abstract

is that principle is a fundamental assumption while abstract is abstract.

As a verb principle

is to equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct.

principle

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A fundamental assumption.
  • * {{quote-web, date=2011-07-20, author=Edwin Mares, site=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, title= Propositional Functions
    • , accessdate = 2012-07-15}}
    Let us consider ‘my dog is asleep on the floor’ again. Frege thinks that this sentence can be analyzed in various different ways. Instead of treating it as expressing the application of __ is asleep on the floor'' to ''my dog'', we can think of it as expressing the application of the concept
         ''my dog is asleep on __''
    to the object
         ''the floor''
    (see Frege 1919). Frege recognizes what is now a commonplace in the logical analysis of natural language. ''We can attribute more than one logical form to a single sentence     . Let us call this the principle of multiple analyses . Frege does not claim that the principle always holds, but as we shall see, modern type theory does claim this.
  • A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem.
  • (usually, in the plural) Moral rule or aspect.
  • (physics) A rule or law of nature, or the basic idea on how the laws of nature are applied.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz
    • , title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles , attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}
  • A fundamental essence, particularly one producing a given quality.
  • * Gregory
    • Cathartine is the bitter, purgative principle of senna.
  • (obsolete) A beginning.
  • * (Edmund Spenser)
    • Doubting sad end of principle unsound.
  • A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.
  • * Tillotson
    • The soul of man is an active principle .
  • An original faculty or endowment.
  • * Stewart
    • those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering

    Usage notes

    Principle is always a noun ("moral rule"), but it is often confused with (principal), which can be an adjective ("most important") or a noun ("school principal"). Consult both definitions if in doubt. Incorrect usage: * He is the principle musician in the band * She worked ten years as school principle A mnemonic to avoid this confusion is "The principal'' alphabetic ''principle'' places ''A'' before ''E ".

    Synonyms

    * (moral rule or aspect) tenet

    Derived terms

    * agreement in principle * anthropic principle * Aufbau principle * Bernoulli's principle * correspondence principle * cosmological principle * Dilbert principle * dormitive principle * equivalence principle * extractive principle * first principles * Huygens' principle * IBM Pollyanna Principle * Le Chatelier's principle * Mach's principle * matter of principle * Matthew principle * Mitchell principle * on principle * Pareto principle * Pauli exclusion principle * Peter principle * pigeonhole principle * precautionary principle * principle of least action * principle of substitutivity * principled stance * programming principle * reciprocity principle * strong equivalence principle * superposition principle * uncertainty principle * verifiability principle

    Related terms

    * prince * principal * principality * principled

    Verb

  • To equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct.
  • * L'Estrange
    • Governors should be well principled .
  • * Locke
    • Let an enthusiast be principled that he or his teacher is inspired.

    External links

    * *

    abstract

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl), from (etyl) abstractus, perfect passive participle of .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An abridgement or summary.
  • * — An abstract of every treatise he had read.
  • Something that concentrates in itself the qualities of larger item, or multiple items.
  • * — Man, the abstract Of all perfection, which the workmanship Of Heaven hath modeled.
  • # Concentrated essence of a product.
  • # (medicine) A powdered solid extract of a medicinal substance mixed with lactose.
  • An abstraction; an term; that which is abstract.
  • * — The concretes "father" and "son" have, or might have, the abstracts "paternity" and "filiety".
  • The theoretical way of looking at things; something that exists only in idealized form.
  • (arts) An abstract work of art.
  • (real estate) A summary title of the key points detailing a tract of land, for ownership; abstract of title.
    • Usage notes
    * (theoretical way of looking at things) Preceded, typically, by the .
    Synonyms
    * (statement summarizing the important points of a text) abridgment, compendium, epitome, synopsis
    Derived terms
    * abstract of title

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • (obsolete) Derived; extracted.
  • (now, rare) Drawn away; removed from; apart from; separate.
  • * 17th century , , The Oxford Dictionary :
    • The more abstract we are from the body ... the more fit we shall be to behold divine light.
  • Expressing a property or attribute separately of an object that is considered to be inherent to that object.
  • Considered apart from any application to a particular object; not concrete; ideal; non-specific; general, as opposed to specific.
  • * - A concrete name is a name which stands for a thing; an abstract' name which stands for an attribute of a thing. A practice has grown up in more modern times, which, if not introduced by Locke, has gained currency from his example, of applying the expression "' abstract name" to all names which are the result of abstraction and generalization, and consequently to all general names, instead of confining it to the names of attributes.
  • Difficult to understand; abstruse; hard to conceptualize.
  • *
  • (archaic) Absent-minded.
  • * Milton
    • abstract , as in a trance
  • *
  • (arts) Pertaining to the formal aspect of art, such as the lines, colors, shapes, and the relationships among them.
  • # (arts, often, capitalized) Free from representational qualities, in particular the non-representational styles of the 20th century.
  • # (music) Absolute.
  • # (dance) Lacking a story.
  • Insufficiently factual.
  • Apart from practice or reality; vague; theoretical; impersonal; not applied.
  • (grammar) As a noun, denoting an intangible as opposed to an object, place, or person.
  • (computing) Of a class in object-oriented programming, being a partial basis for subclasses rather than a complete template for objects.
    • Synonyms
    * (not applied or practical) conceptual, theoretical * (insufficiently factual) formal * (difficult to understand) abstruse
    Antonyms
    * (not applied or practical) applied, practical * (considered apart from concrete existence) concrete
    Derived terms
    * abstractly * abstractness * abstract idea * abstract noun * abstract numbers * abstract terms
    See also
    * reify

    Etymology 2

    First attested in 1542. Partly from' English abstract (adjective form), ' and from (etyl) abstrat past participle of .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To separate; to disengage.
  • * - He was incapable of forming any opinion or resolution abstracted from his own prejudices.
  • To remove; to take away; withdraw.
  • *
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • He was incapable of forming any opinion or resolution abstracted from his own prejudices.
  • (euphemistic) To steal; to take away; to remove without permission.
  • * - Von Rosen had quietly abstracted the bearing-reins from the harness.
  • To summarize; to abridge; to epitomize.
    • (Franklin)
  • (obsolete) To extract by means of distillation.
  • *
  • To consider abstractly; to contemplate separately or by itself; to consider theoretically; to look at as a general quality.
  • *
  • (intransitive, reflexive, literally, figuratively) To withdraw oneself; to retire.
  • To draw off (interest or attention).
  • * , Blackwood's Magazine - The young stranger had been abstracted and silent.
    • He was wholly abstracted by other objects.
  • (rare) To perform the process of abstraction.
  • * - I own myself able to abstract in one sense.
  • (fine arts) To create abstractions.
  • (computing) To produce an abstraction, usually by refactoring existing code. Generally used with "out".
    • He abstracted out the square root function.
    Usage notes
    * (to separate or disengage) Followed by the word from . * (to withdraw oneself) Followed by the word from . * (to summarize) Pronounced predominately as /?æb?strækt/. * All other senses are pronounced as /æb?strækt/.
    Synonyms
    * remove, separate, take away, withdraw * abridge, epitomize, summarize * filch, purloin, steal
    Derived terms
    * abstractable * abstracted * abstracter * abstractor
    Related terms
    * abstraction * abstractive * abstractum

    References

    * English heteronyms ----