concordance

American  

[kon-kawr-dns, kuhn-] / kɒnˈkɔr dns, kən- /

noun

1. agreement; concord; harmony.

   the concordance of the membership.

2. an alphabetical index of the principal words of a book, as of the Bible, with a reference to the passage in which each occurs.

3. an alphabetical index of subjects or topics.

4. (in genetic studies) the degree of similarity in a pair of twins with respect to the presence or absence of a particular disease or trait.

---

concordance British  

/ kənˈkɔːdəns /

noun

1. a state or condition of agreement or harmony

2. a book that indexes the principal words in a literary work, often with the immediate context and an account of the meaning

3. an index produced by computer or machine, alphabetically listing every word in a text

4. an alphabetical list of subjects or topics

---

Etymology

Origin of concordance

1350–1400; Middle English concordaunce < Anglo-French, equivalent to Middle French concordance < Medieval Latin concordantia. See concord, -ance

Explanation

Concordance happens when everything agrees. It can refer to an agreement of opinions, or it can describe things that are in harmony. Your words may be in concordance with your actions — that means they're expressing the same thing. Concordance traces back to the Latin word concordans, meaning "being of one mind." When things are in concordance, it's as if they're of one mind: they agree or are in harmony. A talented home designer will remodel an interior so there's concordance from room to room. If you're a scholarly type, you might already know concordance can also be a list of the main words in a book, usually linked to the passages where they occur.

Example Sentences

The C-index, or concordance index, measures how well a model can rank people by risk.

From Science Daily • Jan. 9, 2026

Last July, it said the artist had “always acted in concordance with the law and on the advice of her financial advisers.”

From Seattle Times • Sep. 26, 2023

“Additionally, ChatGPT demonstrated a high level of concordance and insight in its explanations. These results suggest that large language models may have the potential to assist with medical education, and potentially, clinical decision-making.”

From Washington Times • Jan. 29, 2023

Of what use now the concordance, that elaborate alphabetical list that helps scholars illuminate a word’s frequency in a deeply studied text?

From New York Times • Jun. 8, 2020

If identical twins possess a strong concordance for schizophrenia, say, while fraternal twins—born and bred in an identical environment—show little concordance, then the roots of that illness can be firmly attributed to genetics.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee