Aspatial

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Pertaining to ideas or entities that do not possess spatial characteristics
2. Relating to phenomena that are not confined by physical dimensions
3. Describes something that does not relate to or occupy any location in space

Etymology: "Aspatial" is a plain formation: the prefix "a-", meaning "not" or "without", attached to "spatial". The "a-" comes from Greek "a-" (or its variant "an-"), a negating prefix that English has long used in words such as "atypical" and "asymmetric", while "spatial" derives from Latin "spatium", meaning "space" or "interval", the same root behind "space" itself. Put together, the word describes something that has no place in space, or that lies outside the spatial framework altogether. The word is most useful in technical and philosophical contexts, where writers need to separate things that have no location from things that do. A mathematical object, a concept, or an abstract relationship might be called aspatial when the question of where it sits simply does not apply. Because the combination is transparent, the word carries its meaning in its parts, with no change in sense from its components.

Synonyms: nonspatial, abstract, conceptual, theoretical, intangible