absolute

1. 1

   Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.

   • While Americans enjoy an almost absolute freedom to name their children whatever they please, in Germany the State (as public guardian of the good of the child) restricts parents [...]
2. 2

   Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.; Unrestricted by laws, a constitution, or parliamentary or judicial or other checks; (legally) unlimited in power, especially if despotic.

   • An absolute monarch is free from all forcible restraint, and so far as he is absolute[,] from all legal restraints of positive laws.
3. 3

   Free of restrictions, limitations, qualifications or conditions; unconditional.; Unrestricted by laws, a constitution, or parliamentary or judicial or other checks; (legally) unlimited in power, especially if despotic.

   • The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head, / With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed.
   • […] the more absolute the ruler, the more absolute the revolution will be which replaces him.
4. 4

   Free from imperfection, perfect, complete; especially, perfectly embodying a quality in its essential characteristics or to its highest degree.

   • absolute purity, absolute liberty
5. 5

   Pure, free from mixture or adulteration; unmixed.

   • absolute alcohol
6. 6

   Complete, utter, outright; unmitigated, not qualified or diminished in any way.

   • an absolute denial of all charges
   • When caught, he told an absolute lie.
7. 7

   Positive, certain; unquestionable; not in doubt.

   • Yet if the register is not to be absolute evidence of proprietorship, it is clear that some investigation of title would still be necessary.
   • [...] and in the absence of other signs, or when these latter are inconclusive, it is extremely useful. But it is not, under any circumstances, absolute evidence of the syphilitic nature of a given symptom or set of symptoms.
8. 8

   Certain; free from doubt or uncertainty (e.g. a person, opinion or prediction).archaic

   • I am absolute ’twas very Cloten.
   • The colour of my hair—he cannot tell, Or answers "dark," at random,—while, be sure, He's absolute on the figure, live or ten, Of my last subscription.
9. 9

   Fundamental, ultimate, intrinsic; not relative; independent of references or relations to other things or standards.especially

   • the doctrine that absolute knowledge of things is possible; an absolute principle
   • Absolute rights and duties are such as pertain to man in a state of nature as contradistinguished from relative rights and duties, or such as pertain to him in his social relations.
10. 10

    Independent of arbitrary units of measurement, standards, or properties; not comparative or relative.

    • absolute velocity, absolute motion, absolute position

syn. categorical · unconditional · unlimited · unrestricted · autocratic · despotic · independent of references · relations to other things · standards · living

ant. conditional · limited · antonym(s) of “independent of references · relations to other things · standards”

1. 1

   That which exists (or has a certain property, nature, size, etc) independent of references to other standards or external conditions; that which is universally valid; that which is not relative, conditional, qualified or mitigated.

   • moral absolutes
2. 2

   In a plane, the two imaginary circular points at infinity; in space of three dimensions, the imaginary circle at infinity.

3. 3

   A realm which exists without reference to anything else; that which can be imagined purely by itself; absolute ego.capitalizedusually

   • Withdrawn as a Buddha he sat, watching the alien world from his perch in the absolute.
4. 4

   The whole of reality; the totality to which everything is reduced; the unity of spirit and nature; God.capitalizedusually

5. 5

   A concentrated natural flower oil, used for perfumes; an alcoholic extract of a concrete.

   • The main difference between these and those of indifferent quality is that the former contain flower absolutes in fairly large proportion and the latter either an insignificant quantity or […]