Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to an actual, specific thing or instance; particular.
  • adjective Relating to nouns, such as flower or rain, that denote a material or tangible object or phenomenon.
  • adjective Existing in reality or in real experience; perceptible by the senses; real.
  • adjective Formed by the coalescence of separate particles or parts into one mass; solid.
  • adjective Made of hard, strong, conglomerate construction material.
  • noun A hard, strong construction material consisting of sand, conglomerate gravel, pebbles, broken stone, or slag in a mortar or cement matrix.
  • noun A mass formed by the coalescence of particles.
  • intransitive verb To build, treat, or cover with hard, strong conglomerate construction material.
  • intransitive verb To form into a mass by coalescence or cohesion of particles or parts.
  • intransitive verb To harden; solidify.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In botany, growing together.
  • To unite or coalesce into a mass or solid body; form concretions; coagulate; congeal; clot.
  • To form into a mass, as separate particles, by cohesion or coalescence.
  • To combine so as to form a concrete notion.
  • To treat or lay with concrete: as, to concrete the foundations of a building; to concrete a cellar floor, or a sidewalk.
  • Formed by coalescence of separate particles or constituents; forming a mass; united in a coagulated, condensed, or solid state.
  • In logic, considered as invested with the accidents of matter; particular; individual: opposed to abstract.
  • Bunyan is almost the only writer who ever gave to the abstract the interest of the concrete.
  • In music, melodically unbroken; without skips or distinct steps in passing from one pitch to another.
  • Consisting of concrete: as, a concrete pavement.
  • noun A mass formed by concretion or coalescence of separate particles of matter in one body.
  • noun In grammar and logic, a concrete noun; a particular, individual term; especially, a class-name or proper name.
  • noun A compact mass of sand, gravel, coarse pebbles, or stone chippings cemented together by hydraulic or other mortar, or by asphalt or refuse tar.
  • noun Sugar which has been reduced to a solid mass by evaporation in a concretor.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To form into a mass, as by the cohesion or coalescence of separate particles.
  • transitive verb To cover with, or form of, concrete, as a pavement.
  • adjective United in growth; hence, formed by coalition of separate particles into one mass; united in a solid form.
  • adjective Standing for an object as it exists in nature, invested with all its qualities, as distinguished from standing for an attribute of an object; -- opposed to abstract.
  • adjective Applied to a specific object; special; particular; -- opposed to general. See Abstract, 3.
  • adjective a number associated with, or applied to, a particular object, as three men, five days, etc., as distinguished from an abstract number, or one used without reference to a particular object.
  • adjective a physical object or a collection of such objects.
  • adjective a physical science, one having as its subject of knowledge concrete things instead of abstract laws.
  • adjective one which slides continuously up or down, as distinguished from a discrete movement, in which the voice leaps at once from one line of pitch to another.
  • noun A compound or mass formed by concretion, spontaneous union, or coalescence of separate particles of matter in one body.
  • noun A mixture of gravel, pebbles, or broken stone with cement or with tar, etc., used for sidewalks, roadways, foundations, etc., and esp. for submarine structures.
  • noun (Logic) A term designating both a quality and the subject in which it exists; a concrete term.
  • noun (Sugar Making) Sugar boiled down from cane juice to a solid mass.
  • intransitive verb To unite or coalesce, as separate particles, into a mass or solid body.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Particular, perceivable, real.
  • adjective Not abstract.
  • adjective Made of concrete building material.
  • noun A building material created by mixing Portland cement, water, and aggregate including gravel and sand.
  • noun A solid mass formed by the coalescence of separate particles.
  • noun US A dessert of frozen custard with various toppings.
  • verb To cover with or encase in concrete; often constructed as concrete over.
  • verb To solidify.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cover with cement
  • noun a strong hard building material composed of sand and gravel and cement and water

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English concret, from Latin concrētus, past participle of concrēscere, to grow together, harden : com-, com- + crēscere, to grow; see ker- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin concretus, past participle of concrescere (com- + crescere).

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Examples

  • Set in concrete is a brass channel indicating the precise position and angle of said line (and there's one that runs across the pavement in Lewes outside the Shepherd Neame pub the name of which escapes me).

    Village of Mystery Peter Ashley 2008

  • The term concrete anchor refers to a heavy duty type of anchor that is usually of a larger diameter.

    xml's Blinklist.com 2008

  • But I don't know when they will stop - since the concrete is all under the roof, I wonder if they're playing Jenga with their house.

    On a no-longer quiet summery Saturday da_lj 2008

  • He did say that he hopes to have some what he called concrete proposals to deal with this issue out there in the next couple of weeks.

    CNN Transcript Mar 12, 2009 2009

  • But Lou, Timothy Geithner did announce that he would offer some what he called concrete steps to address those issues in the next couple of weeks.

    CNN Transcript Mar 12, 2009 2009

  • So if the concrete is at a fairly low temperature, and the environment around it contains warmer air with a lot of water vapor, that vapor can condense on the concrete.

    Vigas 2005

  • So if the concrete is at a fairly low temperature, and the environment around it contains warmer air with a lot of water vapor, that vapor can condense on the concrete.

    Vigas 2005

  • So if the concrete is at a fairly low temperature, and the environment around it contains warmer air with a lot of water vapor, that vapor can condense on the concrete.

    Vigas 2005

  • So if the concrete is at a fairly low temperature, and the environment around it contains warmer air with a lot of water vapor, that vapor can condense on the concrete.

    Vigas 2005

  • So if the concrete is at a fairly low temperature, and the environment around it contains warmer air with a lot of water vapor, that vapor can condense on the concrete.

    Vigas 2005

Comments

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  • "The Concrete Centre was formed to fill a void in the marketing of concrete."

    - concretecentre.com

    January 24, 2009

  • Your pronunciation stresses the second syllable, but my Random House Dictionary (first edition) stresses the first as preferable.

    December 12, 2009

  • First syllable stress for the noun, second for the adjective, either for the verb.

    December 12, 2009

  • Right on, Yarb. I should have added that to my comment. Thanks for clarifying it.

    December 13, 2009