concrete

Formsconcreter, concretest

Pluralconcretes (some meanings)

Formsconcretes, concreting, concreted

1. 1
   adjective

   Dealing with or existing as real, particular things instead of abstract qualities or general categories.

   She always asks for concrete examples before accepting a theory.

   Without concrete evidence, the claim remained just speculation.

   Similaractual, real, tangible, material, specific

   Oppositeabstract, intangible

   Note

   One half of the oldest pair in philosophy's vocabulary: concrete against abstract. Isaac Watts's Logick (1725) uses it for terms like white, round or mortal, which point to some subject that has the quality. Grammar keeps the same split in concrete and abstract nouns. In Infinite Jest (1996), David Foster Wallace plays the two words against each other until the distinction itself starts to wobble.

2. 2
   adjective

   Real, actual, and able to be touched or perceived.

   The detective needed concrete evidence to make an arrest.

   Their findings gave the team something concrete to act on.

   Similartangible, solid, real, definite, firm

   Oppositeabstract, intangible, vague, hypothetical

3. 3
   adjective

   Constructed from the hard building composite of cement and aggregate.

   The bridge rests on massive concrete pillars.

   Workers laid a concrete foundation before building the frame.

   Note

   The material sense used before a noun, and the one use of the word that cannot be graded. A wall is concrete or it is not, so the comparative concreter belongs only to the other adjectives. In practice it is the noun doing an adjective's job, as in the concrete pavement of James Joyce's "Eveline" or a concrete pillar in Zadie Smith's Swing Time.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A building material that hardens from a mix of cement, water, and aggregate such as sand or gravel.

   Engineers measured how much concrete the foundation would need.

   The contractor ordered enough concrete to pave the entire lot.

   Note

   Usually a mass noun, as in poured concrete or a load of concrete. It takes a plural when the talk is of kinds: "new concretes may be stronger and more durable," Hendrik Van Oss observed in 2007. Keep it apart from cement. Cement is only the binder, while concrete is the whole mix of cement, water and aggregate such as sand and gravel.

5. 5
   adjective

   Particular and specific, rather than general or unspecified.

   The committee asked for concrete proposals rather than general aims.

   She gave one concrete example to support each point.

   Similarspecific, particular, individual, singular, discrete

   Oppositegeneral, vague, abstract, unspecific

   Note

   The sense that turns a vague offer into a definite one: a concrete proposal, concrete plans, concrete ideas. It sits close to the "real, tangible" meaning but answers a different question. It asks not "does it exist?" but "is it spelled out?" With "the" it becomes a noun for specifics in general, as when Fitzgerald's Jordan changes the subject "with an urban distaste for the concrete" in The Great Gatsby.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A building material of the kind whose cement is Portland cement or a similar limestone-based derivative.

   The bridge was poured from concrete bound with Portland cement.

   Modern concrete relies on Portland cement rather than older lime binders.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To cover or encase something in concrete, the building material.

   The city concreted the riverbank to prevent erosion.

   They will concrete the support pillars before winter.

   Similarpave, cement

   Note

   The builder's verb, and it usually comes with "over": you concrete over a lawn, a yard, a riverbed. The phrase often carries a sense of something lost beneath the surface. Louis Sahagun, writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2010, records that nearly the whole bottom of the Los Angeles River "was concreted over" for flood control.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To solidify something abstract, making a vague idea become real, definite, and fixed.

   The agreement concreted months of informal talks into a binding contract.

   A signed memo can concrete plans that were until then merely spoken.

   Similarsolidify, cement, formalize, crystallize, consolidate

   Note

   An abstract cousin of the builder's verb, at home in academic prose. C. Reinold Noyes writes in The Institution of Property (1936) that economics "has concreted the concept of capital." Kurt Riezler's Physics and Reality (1940) goes further, asking for a logos that can "concrete the concrete." In everyday writing, solidify or firm up does the job without the builder's echo.

9. 9
   nounUScountable

   A dessert of thick frozen custard blended with various toppings such as candy, fruit, or nuts.

   The custard stand is famous for a concrete so thick the spoon stands straight up.

   He ordered a brownie concrete and ate it before it could melt.

   Note

   American custard-stand vocabulary, ordered by flavor: a couple of chocolate chip concretes from Ted Drewes in John Lutz's Diamond Eyes (1990). Allie Chanthorn Reinmann, writing in 2023, separates it from a milkshake by three things: the custard base, the thick spoonable texture and the mix-ins. Outside the US the word may not be understood at all.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A term that designates both a quality and the subject in which that quality exists; a concrete term.

    In traditional logic, 'white' functions as a concrete, naming the quality and the white object together.

    Grammarians once classed 'wise' among concretes when it denoted both wisdom and the wise person.

    Oppositeabstract

    Note

    Logic's noun, made from the adjective of actual things. It names a term that carries a quality together with the subject that has it, as white does, in contrast with an abstract like whiteness. Unlike the adjective, it takes a plural freely. Leonard Peikoff's The Ominous Parallels (1982) describes forming a concept by isolating "two or more similar concretes."

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