1. An idea or a way of thinking that is not related to real situations or practical experiences: "The professor told his class that in some cases, 'beauty' and 'truth' are simply abstractions."
2. An emotional or mental condition that takes a person's attention from what is happening around him or her: "The student was looking out of the classroom window in abstraction as she was thinking about her sick mother during the teacher's presentation."
3. The act of obtaining or removing something from a source: "The doctor read an abstraction of the patient's data from the hospital records."