Concerned

How to spell concerned

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce concerned

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does concerned mean?

1. adjectiveAnxious or troubled about something.
2. adjectiveInvolved in or affected by a particular matter; relevant to it.

Concerned in a sentence

• The doctor looked concerned when she read the test results.

• The manager spoke privately with all the staff concerned in the project.

• Many residents are deeply concerned about the rising cost of housing.

• As far as the budget is concerned, no final decision has been made.

Where does concerned come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb concernere, formed from the prefix con-, meaning 'together', and cernere, meaning 'to sift, separate, or distinguish'. In late Latin the sense drifted from physically sifting things toward the idea of mixing or having to do with something, so that to 'concern' became to relate to or involve a person. English took the word up in the early 1400s by way of the French concerner, at first meaning simply 'to relate to' or 'to affect'. From there the participle 'concerned' developed two everyday strands: being involved in or relevant to a matter, and, by the 1700s, being troubled or anxious about it, since the things that involve us are often the things that worry us. The same cernere root quietly survives in 'discern' and 'certain', a useful reminder that the middle of the word is spelled with -cern-, not -cearn-.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• cern (to sift, separate, distinguish)
• -ed (past participle/adjective suffix)