abstraho

Latin verb

Last edited: 2024-12-02
Primary meaning to make separate
Literal translation to pull away
Variants
abstraho
Edited by
to make separate aspect

Summa enim velocitas transeuntium est, ideoque omnis defectio siderum brevis est quia cito illa idem cursus qui admoverat abstrahit.

‘For, the velocity of stars in transit is very great. Consequently, every eclipse of stars is brief because the same motion that brought them rapidly together separates them rapidly.’

— Seneca, Natural Questions 7.12.4

Genre: philosophy
Date: 62/63 CE

Seneca. Natural Questions, Volume II: Books 4-7. Translated by Thomas H. Corcoran. Loeb Classical Library 457. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972. 252-253

to subtract mathematical operation, arithmetical operation

quaeque super signum nascens a cardine primum tertia sors manet et summo iam proxima caelo haec ter vicenos geminat, tris abstrahit annos.

‘And the temple which is separated by one intervening sign from the first sign rising at the cardinal point and which is now next to heaven’s peak, this multiplies a score by three and takes three years away.’

— Manilius, Astronomica 3.603 ff

Genre: astrological treatise

Manilius. Astronomica. Edited and translated by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library 469. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977. 212-213

Cite this entry
APA (7th)
Meinhardt, K. (2024). abstraho (Lemma #1887). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1887/
Chicago (Author-Date)
Meinhardt, K. (2024). abstraho (Lemma #1887). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1887/
MLA (9th)
Meinhardt, K. (2024). abstraho (Lemma #1887). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1887/
Harvard
Meinhardt, K. (2024) abstraho (Lemma #1887), The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. Available at: https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1887/ (Accessed: December 1, 2025).
BibTeX 
@misc{zodiac1887,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2025-12-01]},
	author = {Meinhardt, Kierán},
	year = {2024},
	title = {abstraho ({Lemma} #1887)},
	url = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1887/},
	howpublished = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1887/},
}