concentration

American  

[kon-suhn-tray-shuhn] / ˌkɒn sənˈtreɪ ʃən /

noun

• concentrations
  plural

1. the act of concentrating; the state of being concentrated.

2. exclusive attention to one object; close mental application.

3. something concentrated.

   a concentration of stars.

4. Military.

   1. the assembling of military or naval forces in a particular area in preparation for further operations.

   2. a specified intensity and duration of artillery fire placed on a small area.

5. the focusing of a student's academic program on advanced study in a specific subject or field.

6. Chemistry. (in a solution) a measure of the amount of dissolved substance contained per unit of volume.

7. Also called memory. Cards. a game in which all 52 cards are spread out face down on the table and each player in turn exposes two cards at a time and replaces them face down if they do not constitute a pair, the object being to take the most pairs by remembering the location of the cards previously exposed.

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concentration British  

/ ˌkɒnsənˈtreɪʃən /

noun

1. intense mental application; complete attention

2. the act or process of concentrating

3. something that is concentrated

4. c. the strength of a solution, esp the amount of dissolved substance in a given volume of solvent, usually expressed in moles per cubic metre or cubic decimetre (litre)

5. the process of increasing the concentration of a solution

6. military

   1. the act of bringing together military forces

   2. the application of fire from a number of weapons against a target

7. economics the degree to which the output or employment in an industry is accounted for by only a few firms

8. another name (esp US) for Pelmanism

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concentration Scientific  

/ kŏn′sən-trā′shən /

1. The amount of a particular substance in a given amount of another substance, especially a solution or mixture.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• hyperconcentration
  noun
• nonconcentration
  noun
• overconcentration
  noun
• preconcentration
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• concentrations
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of concentration

First recorded in 1625–35; concentr(ic) + -ation

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Explanation

If you have great powers of concentration, that means you're able to focus all your attention on the matter at hand. Concentration can also refer to something that's clustered together or to the density or strength of a solution. A concentration of people means that there are many of them in one area. Your city may have a concentration of artists living in the warehouses by the river. A high concentration of a substance in a solution means that there's a lot of it relative to the volume: the Great Salt Lake has very few fish because of the high concentration of salt. To say that you have good concentration skills means that you pay attention well.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

concentration concentrations

“I would hope that we’re mature and professional enough to know that we have to be able to have the right focus, concentration, level of urgency,” McVay said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2026

Excavations at Oued Beht have revealed a large concentration of human activity spread across at least ten hectares.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 31, 2026

“So very high concentration at the top,” Beer said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026

Model developers Anthropic and OpenAI were still pretty secretive about the state of their finances, and concentration became another worry.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026

He lost his concentration and noticed that as he exhaled, he could see his own breath.

From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young

The landfill’s leachate is composed of concentrations of benzene above hazardous waste thresholds and, on occasion, methyl ethyl ketone above hazardous waste thresholds, as well as other harmful constituents at varying concentrations, the lawsuit said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2026

Those whose eating habits most closely matched the diet had significantly higher concentrations of humanin and SHMOOSE.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 25, 2026

And it is home to one of the highest concentrations of billionaires in the globe.

From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026

It also measured concentrations in water-based and organic solutions with accuracies of approximately 0.01%, exceeding the performance of commercial benchtop spectrometers in those experiments.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2026

It is undefended, and contains no war industries or troop concentrations of any importance.”

From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

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Related Words

• absorption
• combination
• consolidation

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