Skip to definition.
Get the FREE one-click dictionary software for Windows or the iPhone/iPad and Android apps


Verb: concentrate  'kón-sun,treyt
  1. Hold attention and exert mental effort on something
    "Please concentrate on your studies and not on your hobbies";
    - focus, center [US], centre [Brit, Cdn], pore, rivet, pore over
     
  2. Make denser, stronger, or purer
    "concentrate juice"
     
  3. Make central
    - centralize, centralise [Brit]
     
  4. Make more concise
    "concentrate the contents of a book into a summary";
    - digest, condense, distill [N. Amer], distil [Brit]
     
  5. Draw together or meet in one common centre
    "These groups concentrate in the inner cities"
     
  6. Compress or concentrate
    - condense, contract
     
  7. (cooking) be cooked until very little liquid is left
    "The sauce should concentrate to one cup";
    - boil down, reduce, decoct [archaic]
     
  8. (cooking) cook until very little liquid is left
    "The cook concentrated the sauce by boiling it for a long time";
    - reduce, boil down
Noun: concentrate  'kón-sun,treyt
  1. The desired mineral that is left after impurities have been removed from mined ore
    - dressed ore
     
  2. A concentrated form of a foodstuff; the bulk is reduced by removing water
     
  3. A concentrated example of something
    "the concentrate of contemporary despair"

Derived forms: concentrates, concentrating, concentrated

Type of: abbreviate, abridge, alter, cerebrate, change, change state, cogitate, contract, converge, cut, decrease, diminish, epitome, fall, food product, foodstuff, foreshorten, image, lessen, minify, modify, ore, paradigm, prototype, reduce, shorten, think, turn

Antonym: decentralize

Encyclopedia: Concentrate