concert

Pluralconcerts

Formsconcerts, concerting, concerted

1. 1
   music shownouncountable

   A live performance of music for an audience, usually in public, by one or more musicians or singers.

   The orchestra's final concert of the season sold out within hours.

   Local bands organize free concerts downtown every summer.

   UsageYou go to a concert. In concert can also mean performing live, as in a band in concert.

   Similargig

2. 2
   joint actionnoununcountable

   Agreement in a design or plan; harmony or unity of action arising from shared views and mutual communication.

   Several governments moved in concert to stabilize the falling currency.

   The two rescue agencies acted in concert to search the coastline and warn nearby towns before the storm arrived.

   UsageMost often in the phrase in concert, or in concert with others; also a concert of views or action.

   Similarunison, harmony, accord, concord, cooperation

   Oppositediscord, disunity, disagreement, conflict

   Note

   Hamilton saw obstacles to "a concert of views," and in 1837 Calhoun urged that there be "concert of action." The same idea of moving together lives on in the phrase in concert, as when governments act in concert.

3. 3
   plan togetherverbtransitive

   To plan or arrange something, often jointly with others through agreement or discussion.

   The rebels concerted a scheme to seize the armory at dawn.

   Foreign ministers from the region gathered in Geneva to concert a common response to the crisis.

   UsageMost often met as concerted: a concerted effort, concerted action.

   Note

   The object is typically a plan, a scheme or a defense, and the passive sits easily: James Madison, in The Federalist (1788), writes that plans of resistance would be concerted. Jonathan Swift (1710) and Edmund Burke (1756) had already used it this way.

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