The act of focusing on one characteristic of an object rather than the object as a whole group of characteristics; the act of separating said qualities from the object or ideas.
Any characteristic of an individual object when that characteristic has been separated from the object and is contemplated alone as a quality having independent existence.
The act of comparing commonality between distinct objects and organizing using those similarities; the act of generalizing characteristics; the product of said generalization.
The result of mentally abstracting an idea; the product of any mental process involving a synthesis of: separation, despecification, generalization, and ideation in any of a number of combinations.
Any generalization technique that ignores or hides details to capture some kind of commonality between different instances for the purpose of controlling the intellectual complexity of engineered systems, particularly software systems.