- total and complete
- I've joined a class for absolute beginners.
- absolute confidence/trust/silence/truth
- ‘You're wrong,’ she said with absolute certainty.
- Clean water is an absolute necessity.
- Around them the darkness was absolute, the silence oppressive.
Extra Examples- He demands absolute obedience from his men.
- They drove back to the house in absolute silence.
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural-sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.
- [only before noun] used, especially in spoken English, to give emphasis to what you are saying
- We must keep costs to an absolute minimum.
- This room is an absolute disgrace.
- They're talking absolute nonsense.
- He must earn an absolute fortune.
Extra Examples- What an absolute idiot I’ve been!
- The way you treated her was an absolute disgrace.
- There's absolute rubbish on television tonight.
- definite and without any doubt
- There was no absolute proof.
- He taught us that the laws of physics were absolute.
- The story offers no clear message, no absolute truth.
- (of a legal decision) final
- The divorce became absolute last week.
- not limited in any way
- absolute power/authority
- an absolute ruler/monarchy (= one with no limit to their power)
- existing or measured independently and not in relation to something else
- Although prices are falling in absolute terms, energy is still expensive.
- Beauty cannot be measured by any absolute standard.
Word Originlate Middle English: from Latin absolutus ‘freed, unrestricted’, past participle of absolvere ‘set free, acquit’, from ab- ‘from’ + solvere ‘loosen’.
Check pronunciation:
absolute