Concentrated

How to spell concentrated

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce concentrated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does concentrated mean?

1. verbPast tense of concentrate: directed all of one's attention or effort onto a single thing.
2. adjectiveHaving had water or other diluting matter removed so the substance is stronger or denser.

Concentrated in a sentence

• verb

  She concentrated on the spreadsheet until the figures finally balanced.

• adjective

  The concentrated orange juice has to be diluted with three parts water.

• verb

  The team concentrated their resources on the most profitable region.

• adjective

  A small amount of concentrated detergent cleans a full load of laundry.

Where does concentrated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin centrum, meaning 'the centre point', which itself was borrowed from the Greek kentron, the sharp point of a compass used to draw a circle. In the seventeenth century French chemists and scientists built the verb concentrer, joining con- ('together') to the idea of the centre, so that to concentrate something literally meant to bring its parts toward a single middle point. English adopted 'concentrate' in the 1600s, first in the technical sense of drawing matter inward to make it denser or stronger, and only later in the everyday mental sense of gathering one's attention onto one thing. 'Concentrated' is the past and participial form, and the spelling preserves that buried 'centr' of centre, which is a useful anchor: think of pulling everything toward the centre. The same centr root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'central', 'eccentric', and 'concentric'.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• centr (centre, from Latin centrum)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ed (past tense/adjective suffix)