The phrase "abstract longing" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a deep, intangible desire or yearning that is not easily defined or articulated.
Example: "Her poetry often reflects an abstract longing for a time and place that never existed."
Alternatives: "intangible desire" or "vague yearning".
"Eclipse," the middle installment — Stephenie Meyer's four books will be made into five movies — raises the level of romantic intensity considerably, and also nudges Bella's heretofore somewhat abstract longings decisively in the direction of physical lust.
But what was mostly abstracted was the longing affixed to these men, because they had not just been part of home but had meant it, had lent us their names and countries and then moved on, leaving tokens of their presence and absence.
The urge to mock our actual presidents is as strong as our longing, in the abstract at least, to revere the president.
In the series, Wordsworth sought to write unaffected English verse infused with abstract ideals of beauty, nature, love, longing and death.
Longing for retribution is longing for retribution.
In abstract art, he found a way to express the pain and longing those frames hid.
In their review wrote "In its abstract movie-ness, O'Neill's 73-minute fantasia exudes a wistful longing to connect, not so much with Hollywood history as with the history of that history".
Nothing could be more characteristic of Arendt than the longing for respect and recognition that shines through these seemingly abstract arguments.
He gets inside people, and he festers there, sparking longings too intense and elusive to satisfy, desires too abstract and ethereal to fulfil, a sense of escape, transcendence, revelation, and ecstasy so deep it can seem to trivialise ordinary life, and thus trivialise whoever has to live that life, which is to say anyone.
