Concurrently

How to spell concurrently

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce concurrently

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does concurrently mean?

1. adverbAt the same time as something else; happening or running simultaneously.

Concurrently in a sentence

• The two projects ran concurrently, sharing the same team of engineers.

• The judge ruled that the sentences would be served concurrently rather than one after the other.

Where does concurrently come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb concurrere, meaning 'to run together', formed from the prefix con- ('together') and currere ('to run'). The same currere root gives English a large family of relatives, including 'current', 'occur', 'recur', and 'courier', all of which carry a buried sense of running or flowing. By the time the adjective 'concurrent' reached English in the late 1300s, by way of Latin and Old French, it had shifted from literal running to the idea of things happening or acting at the same time, as if they were running side by side. The adverb 'concurrently' is the later extension, simply adding the -ly ending to describe events occurring simultaneously. The doubled r in the middle, inherited straight from currere, is the spelling trap, since writers often drop one r or hesitate over the unstressed -ent ending that becomes -ently.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• cur (run, from Latin currere 'to run')
• -ent (adjective ending)
• -ly (adverb ending)