Abstraction means displaying only essential information and hiding the details. Data abstraction refers to providing only essential information about the data to the outside world, hiding the background details or implementation. Consider a real life example of a man driving a car. This is what abstraction is.

Abstraction (from the Latin abs, meaning away from and trahere , meaning to draw) is the process of taking away or removing characteristics from something in order to reduce it to a set of essential characteristics. Abstraction is related to both encapsulation and data hiding.

English Language Learners Definition of abstraction : the act of obtaining or removing something from a source : the act of abstracting something. formal : a general idea or quality rather than an actual person, object, or event : an abstract idea or quality.

Abstraction is the ability to describe the essence of a situation using simple words devoid of technical terms and jargons and is one of the core skills of strong innovators. Analogy thinking is the ability to review the abstract situation and be able to relate to similar situations in completely unrelated domains.

For example, “Life is a box of chocolates.” An analogy is saying something is like something else to make some sort of explanatory point. For example, “Life is like a box of chocolates—you never know what you’re gonna get.” You can use metaphors and similes when creating an analogy.

The use of analogies is suggested as an instructional tool in abstract concept learning.

Through Analogy, the things, which are different from each other, are compared. It aims to explain the ideas or things by doing a comparison. Metaphors and similes are used as tools to represent an analogy. Therefore, the analogy is more elaborate than simile and a metaphor.