What the heck does that mean?
In plain "English", this means "how far from Zero" a number is, and the simplest way to understand this concept is by looking at some graphs!
Diagram 1![picture of absoltue value of 2 on number line](images/absolute-value/picture-absolute-value-of-2-number-line.png)
Diagram 1 above shows the $$ |2| $$ on a number line. As you can see, both $$-2$$ and $$2$$ satisfy the $$ |2| $$ because both of those numbers are '2' units from zero!