absence

1. 1.

   the state of being absent

   “he was surprised by the absence of any explanation”

   Antonymspresence

   Broaderlack

   Narrowernonoccurrenceawayness
2. 2.

   failure to be present

   Antonymspresence

   Broadernonattendance

   Narrowercutdefaultabsenteeism
3. 3.

   the time interval during which something or somebody is away

   “he visited during my absence”

   Broadertime interval
4. 4.

   the occurrence of an abrupt, transient loss or impairment of consciousness (which is not subsequently remembered), sometimes with light twitching, fluttering eyelids, etc.; common in petit mal epilepsy

   Synonymsabsence seizure

   Broaderseizure

   Narrowercomplex absencepure absencesubclinical absence

   Part ofpetit mal epilepsy

Other forms of absence

plural

absences·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about absence

What does absence mean?

absence means "the state of being absent". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in absence?

absence has 2 syllables: ab-sence. The stress falls on "ab". In IPA it is /ˈæbsəns/.

What is another word for absence?

Close synonyms include absence seizure. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of absence?

The recorded antonyms are presence, presence.

Is absence a common word?

absence is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.