1 total and complete:
a class for absolute beginners * absolute confidence / trust / silence / truth * 'You're wrong,' she said with absolute certainty. * Around them the darkness was absolute, the silence oppressive.
2 [onlybeforenoun] used, especially in spoken English, to give emphasis to what you are saying:
There's absolute rubbish on television tonight. * He must earn an absolute fortune. * 4 Mb is the absolute minimum you need to run the program. * What an absolute idiot I've been!
3 definite and without any doubt or uncertainty:
There was no absolute proof. * He taught us that the laws of physics were absolute. * The divorce became absolute last week.
seealsoDECREEABSOLUTE
4 not limited or restricted:
absolute power / authority * an absolute ruler / monarchy (= one with no limit to their power)
5 existing or measured independently and not in relation to sth else:
Although prices are falling in absolute terms, energy is still expensive. * Beauty cannot be measured by any absolute standard.
compareRELATIVE
noun an idea or a principle that is believed to be true or valid in any circumstances:
Right and wrong are, for her, moral absolutes.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for absolute is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is absolute a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, absolute is tagged as adjective.
Does absolute appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — absolute appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
