In mathematics and related fields, an abstract structure is a way of describing a set of mathematical objects and the relationships between them, focusing on the essential rules and properties rather than any specific meaning or example.
Similarly, an abstract structure defines a framework of objects, operations, and relationships.
While a real-world object or computer program might represent, instantiate, or implement an abstract structure, the structure itself exists as an abstract concept, independent of any particular representation.
This abstraction allows to see common patterns across seemingly different areas of mathematics and to apply the same reasoning and tools to analyze them.
Abstract structures are studied not only in logic and mathematics but in the fields that apply them, as computer science and computer graphics, and in the studies that reflect on them, such as philosophy (especially the philosophy of mathematics).