If you are abstracted, you are in the room but not really in the room. Your eyes may be open, you may even answer “mm,” but your mind is on something else — a worry, a memory, a plan. People around you can tell: you look far away. It is quieter than rude and kinder than “ignoring you”; it is attention that has stepped aside, not manners that have failed, though it can still hurt. Slightly literary, still alive. Teachers and novels use it; teenagers more often say “spacing out” or “lost in thought,” and in Taiwan you may hear “he’s not paying attention.” Though actually, this is not the same as abstract art, and it is not the same as an abstract of a paper (a short summary). Those share a spelling and an old Latin picture of “pulling away,” but abstracted here means your attention has been pulled away from now. It can sound a little critical (“she was too abstracted to hear”) or simply descriptive.