Concern

How to spell concern

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce concern

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does concern mean?

1. nounA feeling of worry or anxiety about something.
2. verbTo relate to, affect, or be the business of someone.
3. nounA company or commercial enterprise.

Concern in a sentence

• noun

  The rising cost of housing is a serious concern for young families.

• verb

  This new policy will concern every employee in the department.

• noun

  The bakery grew from a small family concern into a national chain.

• noun

  She raised her concern about the project deadline during the meeting.

• verb

  The report does not concern matters outside the local council.

• noun

  Investors bought the struggling concern and turned it around.

Where does concern come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb concernere, formed from the prefix con-, meaning 'together' or used here for emphasis, and cernere, meaning 'to sift', 'to separate', or 'to distinguish'. In later Latin concernere drifted toward the idea of mixing things together and then of having a bearing on something, so that a matter concerned you if it sifted into your own affairs. English took the word in the early 1400s through Old French concerner, at first meaning 'to relate to' or 'to have reference to'. The familiar emotional shade, that of worry or anxious care, grew later from the sense that a thing which concerns you is a thing that weighs on your attention. The same Latin cernere also gave us 'discern' and 'certain', a useful reminder that the middle of the word is spelled cern, not cearn or sern.

How the word is built

• con- (together, intensive)
• cern (from Latin cernere: to sift, separate, distinguish)