# concentration

Pronunciation: say "kon-suhn-TRAY-shuhn" US /ˌkɑn.sənˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, UK /ˌkɒn.sənˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/

## Noun

1. The focusing of one's attention on a specific object or activity.
   - Simple: Giving all of your attention to one particular thing.
   - _The chess player's concentration never wavered during the long match._
   - _A single interruption was enough to shatter her concentration._
2. The act, process, or ability of concentrating, whether becoming focused or staying in a focused state.
   - Simple: The skill of focusing your mind, or the act of doing it.
   - _The surgeon worked with intense concentration throughout the operation._
   - _Fatigue gradually wore down his concentration as the night went on._
3. The relative amount of a substance contained within a larger whole.
   - Simple: How much of one substance there is inside a mixture.
   - _The concentration of pollutants in the river rose sharply after the spill._
   - _Doctors monitored the oxygen concentration in her blood._
4. The amount of solute dissolved in a solution, expressed in suitable units such as parts per million.
   - Simple: The amount of a dissolved substance in a liquid mixture.
   - _The lab reported a lead concentration of twelve parts per million._
   - _Chemists diluted the sample to lower its concentration._
5. The act, process, or product of reducing a liquid's volume, as by evaporation.
   - Simple: The act of making a liquid thicker by removing some of its water.
   - _Concentration of the maple sap produces a thick, sweet syrup._
   - _The plant relies on concentration to cut the juice's volume before freezing._
6. A field or course of study that a student focuses on, especially at a college or university.
   - Simple: The main subject a student chooses to study at college.
   - _She declared a concentration in medieval history during her second year._
   - _The program lets students combine two concentrations._
7. A memory-based matching card game in which players turn over hidden cards to find pairs.
   - Simple: A card game where you turn cards over to find matching pairs.
   - _We spent the rainy afternoon playing concentration on the living room floor._
   - _He beat his grandmother at concentration three games in a row._
8. The 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.
   - Simple: The process of separating valuable metal from waste rock in mining.
   - _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._

## 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."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/concentration (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).