in abstractoadv.

1584 R. Cosin Answer to Two Fyrst & Principall Treat. ii. vii. 258 A thing may be altered or dispensed withall, whose reason is no waie In abstracto thereby impeached.

1602 W. Watson Decacordon Ten Quodlibeticall Questions ix. 310 Which if he can bring to passe..then shall the French be so fleeced in abstracto..to be distracted out of their wits.

1669 O. Grew Lord Jesus Christ 55 We must look unto Christs sufferings not in abstracto, meerly as sufferings, but as suffering or passion in obedience.

1731 G. Martin in Philos. Trans. 1729–30 (Royal Soc.) 36 453 They had only contemplated the Matter in Abstracto, as the Metaphysicians say, without considering they had not to do with a pure thin dry air.

1857 tr. I. Kant in Brit. Med. Jrnl. 7 Nov. 928/1 A physician,..whilst he can comprehend the general in abstracto, cannot distinguish whether a particular case in concreto ought to rank under the former.

1912 W. James Ess. Radical Empiricism xii. 269 Let us fall back from all concrete attempts and see what we can do with his notion of through-and-throughness, avowedly taken in abstracto.

1933 Times Lit. Suppl. 13 Apr. 256/2 Towards the religious life of India Dr. Söderblom is kinder than many critics, but he, of course, is dealing with it in abstracto and not in its cruder manifestations.

1969 Word 1967 23 385 The verb expresses nothing but the verbal idea in abstracto without containing any actualizing elements such as tense, mode, or voice.

2015 Internat. Rev. Aesthetics & Sociol. Music 46 212 The musical work exists independently of being materialised; it exists in abstracto.