concentration
- 1The focusing of one's attention on a specific object or activity.
The chess player's concentration never wavered during the long match.
A single interruption was enough to shatter her concentration.
Similarfocus, attention, absorption
Oppositedistraction, inattention
- 2The act, process, or ability of concentrating, whether becoming focused or staying in a focused state.
The surgeon worked with intense concentration throughout the operation.
Fatigue gradually wore down his concentration as the night went on.
Similarfocus, attention, application, absorption
Oppositedistraction, inattention
Note
The core sense keeps the oldest picture behind the word. New Latin concentrātiō, recorded in 1550, meant coming together at a single place. That spatial meaning survives when Leo A. Orleans, in Every Fifth Child (1972), writes of the greatest concentration of Koreans in Kirin Province. The English form is simply concentrate plus -ion, like French concentration and Spanish concentración. The focus of attention is the same gathering turned inward.
- 3The relative amount of a substance contained within a larger whole.
The concentration of pollutants in the river rose sharply after the spill.
Doctors monitored the oxygen concentration in her blood.
Similarlevel, content, proportion, density, amount
Note
A proportion is something you can count, so the plural comes naturally. Philip J. Bushnell, writing in 2013, describes solvent vapors "at concentrations below those associated with long-term effects." The usual frame is concentration of X in Y, as in pollutants in a river or oxygen in the blood. When the figure carries a laboratory unit, the word has moved into the chemist's measured amount.
- 4The amount of solute dissolved in a solution, expressed in suitable units such as parts per million.
The lab reported a lead concentration of twelve parts per million.
Chemists diluted the sample to lower its concentration.
Note
Physical chemistry makes the proportion exact by attaching a unit to it, such as parts per million, molarity (moles per liter) or molality. A concentration here is always a figure of so much solute per so much solution. The verb that lowers it is dilute, which is the reverse of boiling a liquid down.
- 5The act, process, or product of reducing a liquid's volume, as by evaporation.
Concentration of the maple sap produces a thick, sweet syrup.
The plant relies on concentration to cut the juice's volume before freezing.
Similarreduction, evaporation, condensation
Oppositedilution
- 6A field or course of study that a student focuses on, especially at a college or university.
She declared a concentration in medieval history during her second year.
The program lets students combine two concentrations.
Similarmajor, specialization, specialty, focus, emphasis
- 7A memory-based matching card game in which players turn over hidden cards to find pairs.
We spent the rainy afternoon playing concentration on the living room floor.
He beat his grandmother at concentration three games in a row.
Similarmemory, pelmanism, pairs
Note
One card game goes by two names: concentration and pelmanism. The first name describes the play, since winning depends on keeping attention on every card turned and remembering where its partner lay. Like most game names, it takes no article: people play concentration, not a concentration.
- 8The process of removing the worthless part of an ore and reducing the valuable portion to a smaller bulk, as by currents of air or water.
Concentration of the tin ore relied on running water to wash away the lighter waste.
The mill's concentration of the copper ore raised its metal content before smelting.
Similarenrichment
Note
Mining keeps a sense the Latin already had. By 1659, New Latin concentrātiō meant separating one or more metals from an alloy. Here the gathering is of value rather than of people: currents of water or air carry off the lighter waste, so the worthwhile part takes up less room. It is mill vocabulary, used of a particular ore (concentration of tin or copper ore) as a step before smelting.
Practice
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Origin
From New Latin "concentratio," first meaning the act of coming together at a single place (1550) and later the extraction or separation of metals from an alloy (1659). It is equivalent to "concentrate" plus the suffix "-ion," and compares with French "concentration," Spanish "concentración," and Italian "concentrazione."