Space n.
 1. Extension, considered independently of anything which it may contain; that which makes extended objects conceivable and possible.
    Pure space is capable neither of resistance nor motion.   --Locke.
 2. Place, having more or less extension; room.
 They gave him chase, and hunted him as hare;
 Long had he no space to dwell [in].   --R. of Brunne.
    While I have time and space.   --Chaucer.
 3. A quantity or portion of extension; distance from one thing to another; an interval between any two or more objects; as, the space between two stars or two hills; the sound was heard for the space of a mile.
    Put a space betwixt drove and drove.   --Gen. xxxii. 16.
 4. Quantity of time; an interval between two points of time; duration; time. “Grace God gave him here, this land to keep long space.”
    Nine times the space that measures day and night.   --Milton.
    God may defer his judgments for a time, and give a people a longer space of repentance.   --Tillotson.
 5. A short time; a while. [R.] “To stay your deadly strife a space.”
 6. Walk; track; path; course. [Obs.]
 This ilke [same] monk let old things pace,
 And held after the new world the space.   --Chaucer.
 7. Print. (a) A small piece of metal cast lower than a face type, so as not to receive the ink in printing, -- used to separate words or letters. (b) The distance or interval between words or letters in the lines, or between lines, as in books, on a computer screen, etc.
 Note: ☞ Spaces are of different thicknesses to enable the compositor to arrange the words at equal distances from each other in the same line.
 8. Mus. One of the intervals, or open places, between the lines of the staff.
 Absolute space, Euclidian space, etc. See under Absolute, Euclidian, etc.
 deep space, the part of outer space which is beyond the limits of the solar system.
 Space line Print., a thin piece of metal used by printers to open the lines of type to a regular distance from each other, and for other purposes; a lead. --Hansard.
 Space rule Print., a fine, thin, short metal rule of the same height as the type, used in printing short lines in tabular matter.


 Ab·so·lute a.
 1. Loosed from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional; as, absolute authority, monarchy, sovereignty, an absolute promise or command; absolute power; an absolute monarch.
 2. Complete in itself; perfect; consummate; faultless; as, absolute perfection; absolute beauty.
 So absolute she seems,
 And in herself complete.   --Milton.
 3. Viewed apart from modifying influences or without comparison with other objects; actual; real; -- opposed to relative and comparative; as, absolute motion; absolute time or space.
 Note: Absolute rights and duties are such as pertain to man in a state of nature as contradistinguished from relative rights and duties, or such as pertain to him in his social relations.
 4. Loosed from, or unconnected by, dependence on any other being; self-existent; self-sufficing.
 Note: ☞ In this sense God is called the Absolute by the Theist. The term is also applied by the Pantheist to the universe, or the total of all existence, as only capable of relations in its parts to each other and to the whole, and as dependent for its existence and its phenomena on its mutually depending forces and their laws.
 5. Capable of being thought or conceived by itself alone; unconditioned; non-relative.
 Note: ☞ It is in dispute among philosopher whether the term, in this sense, is not applied to a mere logical fiction or abstraction, or whether the absolute, as thus defined, can be known, as a reality, by the human intellect.
    To Cusa we can indeed articulately trace, word and thing, the recent philosophy of the absolute.   --Sir W. Hamilton.
 6. Positive; clear; certain; not doubtful. [R.]
    I am absolute 't was very Cloten.   --Shak.
 7. Authoritative; peremptory. [R.]
 The peddler stopped, and tapped her on the head,
 With absolute forefinger, brown and ringed.   --Mrs. Browning.
 8. Chem. Pure; unmixed; as, absolute alcohol.
 9. Gram. Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the sentence in government; as, the case absolute. See Ablative absolute, under Ablative.
 Absolute curvature Geom., that curvature of a curve of double curvature, which is measured in the osculating plane of the curve.
 Absolute equation Astron., the sum of the optic and eccentric equations.
 Absolute space Physics, space considered without relation to material limits or objects.
 Absolute terms. Alg., such as are known, or which do not contain the unknown quantity. --Davies & Peck.
 Absolute temperature Physics, the temperature as measured on a scale determined by certain general thermo-dynamic principles, and reckoned from the absolute zero.
 Absolute zero Physics, the be ginning, or zero point, in the scale of absolute temperature. It is equivalent to -273° centigrade or -459.4° Fahrenheit.
 Syn: -- Positive; peremptory; certain; unconditional; unlimited; unrestricted; unqualified; arbitrary; despotic; autocratic.


 absolute space
      n : physical space independent of what occupies it