Definition:
A group of words that modifies an independent clause as a whole.
An absolute is made up of a noun and its modifiers. It may precede, follow, or interrupt the main clause:
- Their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky, the storks circled high above us.
- The storks circled high above us, their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky.
- The storks, their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky, circled high above us.
See also:
- Building Sentences with Absolutes
- Absolutes and Appositives in Conroy's "Midair"
- Absolutes and Participial Phrases in Shaw's "The Eighty-Yard Run"
- Exercise: Sentence Building with Absolutes
- Revising Sentences with Absolutes
Etymology:
From the Latin, "free, loosen, unrestricted"Examples:
- "Six boys came over the hill half an hour early that afternoon, running hard, their heads down, their forearms working, their breath whistling."
(John Steinbeck, The Red Pony) - "Bolenciecwcz was staring at the floor now, trying to think, his great brow furrowed, his huge hands rubbing together, his face red."
(James Thurber, "University Days") - "The spider skins lie on their sides, translucent and ragged, their legs drying in knots."
(Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm, 1977) - "A tall man, his shotgun slung behind his back with a length of plow line, dismounted and dropped his reins and crossed the little way to the cedar bolt."
(Howard Bahr, The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War. Picador, 2001) - "The men sit on the edge of the pens, the big white and silver fish between their knees, ripping with knives and tearing with hands, heaving the disemboweled bodies into a central basket."
(William G. Wing, "Christmas Comes First on the Banks") - "The accused man, Kabuo Miyamoto, sat proudly upright with a rigid grace, his palms placed softly on the defendant's table--the posture of a man who has detached himself insofar as this is possible at his own trial."
(David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars, 1994) - "The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick."
(George Orwell, "A Hanging," 1931) - "You can get a fair sense of the perils of an elevator shaft by watching an elevator rush up and down one, its counterweight flying by, like the blade on a guillotine."
(Nick Paumgarten, "Up and Then Down." The New Yorker, April 21, 2008) - "Two middle-aged men with jogging disease lumber past me, their faces purple, their bellies slopping, their running shoes huge and costly."
(Joe Bennett, Mustn't Grumble. Simon & Schuster, 2006) - "At a right angle to the school was the back of the church, its bricks painted the color of dried blood."
(Pete Hamill, A Drinking Life, 1994) - "Ross sat on the edge of a chair several feet away from the table, leaning forward, the fingers of his left hand spread upon his chest, his right hand holding a white knitting needle which he used for a pointer."
(James Thurber, The Years With Ross, 1958) - "One by one, down the hill come the mothers of the neighborhood, their kids running beside them."
(Roger Rosenblatt, "Making Toast." The New Yorker, Dec. 15, 2008) - "I could see, even in the mist, Spurn Head stretching out ahead of me in the gloom, its spine covered in marram grass and furze, its shingle flanks speared with the rotting spars of failed breakwaters."
(Will Self, "A Real Cliff Hanger." The Independent, Aug. 30, 2008) - "Down the long concourse they came unsteadily, Enid favouring her damaged hip, Alfred paddling at the air with loose-hinged hands and slapping the airport carpeting with poorly controlled feet, both of them carrying Nordic Pleasurelines shoulder bags and concentrating on the floor in front of them, measuring out the hazardous distance three paces at a time."
(Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections. Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2001)
Pronunciation: AB-so-LOOT FRAZE
Also Known As: absolute or absolute clause
