concreteadj/ˈkɒnkɹiːt/

• 1

  Real, actual, tangible.

  • Fuzzy videotapes and distorted sound recordings are not concrete evidence that Bigfoot exists.
  • Once arrested, I realized that handcuffs are concrete, even if my concept of what is legal wasn't.
• 2

  category-theorycomputingengineeringReal, actual, tangible.

• 3

  Real, actual, tangible.

• 4

  Being or applying to actual things, rather than abstract qualities or categories.

  • Concrete Terms, while they expreſs the Quality, do alſo either expreſs, or imply, or refer to ſome Subject to which it belongs; as white, round, long, broad, wiſe, mortal, living, dead.
  • As expressed in the premiss, the proposition appeals directly and in concrete language to the incapacity of the human imagination for conceiving a minimum.
• 5

  Particular, specific, rather than general.

  • While everyone else offered thoughts and prayers, she made a concrete proposal to help.
  • concrete ideas
• 6

  Made of concrete (building material).

  • The office building had concrete flower boxes out front.
  • Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses.
• 7

  obsoleteMade up of separate parts; composite.

  • I cannot wholly expreſs him, I wot not what to call him, but a certain thing altogether made of the hatred of God, of miſtruſt in God, of wings, deceits, diſcord, manſlaughters, and in a word, a thing concrete and heaped up of perjuries, and made of all kind of miſchief.
  • The reason why this wisdom so strengthens the wise, even more then many mighty men, so that one wise man more preserves the City then many strong men; it seems to be, because Wisdom both originally and formally, is concrete with power and might: and therefore whatsoever strength can do alone, that also can Wisdom do & more.
• 8

  obsoleteNot liquid or fluid; solid.

  • Ere the white body they could reach; and stuck, as telling how / They purpos'd to have pierc'd his flesh: his peril pierced now / The eyes of prince Eurypilus, Evemon's famous son; Who came close on, and with his dart struck duke Apisaon, / Whose surname was Phausiades, even to the concrete blood / That makes the liver: on the earth out gush'd his vital flood.
  • He [Thales] saw that the breeding of animals is in moisture; that the seeds and kernels of plants (as long as they are productive and fresh), are likewise soft and tender; that metals also melt and become fluid, and are as it were concrete juices of the earth, or rather a kind of mineral waters; […]

concretenoun/ˈkɒnkɹiːt/

• 1

  A building material created by mixing cement, water, and aggregate such as gravel and sand.

  • Various types of concrete have been used in the construction of this highway.
  • Smooth facets of buildings have given way to cobbly insides of concrete blasted apart, all the endless-pebbled rococo just behind the shuttering.
• 2

  A building material created by mixing cement, water, and aggregate such as gravel and sand.

  • The sidewalk was made of concrete that had been poured in large slabs.
  • Within hours of the deadly van attack on April 23, 2018, the city installed a series of thigh-high concrete barriers around Union Station and other bustling spots in downtown Toronto.
• 3

  human-scienceslogicmathematicsA term designating both a quality and the subject in which it exists; a concrete term.

  • Whence follows, that the Abſtract Terms, [Entity] or [Eſſence] do properly ſignify [A Capacity of Being.] Tho' Entity is often us'd as a Concrete for the Thing it ſelf.
  • Conceptualization is man's method of organizing sensory material. To form a concept, one isolates two or more similar concretes from the rest of one's perceptual field, and integrates them into a single mental unit, symbolized by a word.
• 4

  A dessert of frozen custard with various toppings.

  • When Nudger and Claudia were finished eating they drove to the Ted Drewes frozen custard stand on Chippewa and stood in line for a couple of chocolate chip concretes. Drewes's concretes were delicious custard concoctions so thick that before the kids working behind the counter handed them to customers, they turned the cups upside down to demonstrate that the contents wouldn't pour out.
  • Paradoxically richer and yet lighter than ice cream, frozen custard is softly served, and at Curly's you can have your I vanilla or chocolate flavor custard "concrete" style, with your choice of a rainbow of candy and fruit toppings whipped in.
• 5

  An extract of herbal materials that has a semi-solid consistency, especially when such materials are partly aromatic.

  • Most concretes contain about 50 per cent wax, 50 per cent volatile oil, such as jasmine; in rare cases, as with ylang ylang, the concrete is liquid and contains about 80 per cent essential oil, 20 per cent wax. The advantage of concretes is that they are more stable and concentrated than pure essential oils.
  • Monsieur Roca held another concrete under my nose and asked if it reminded me of tea. I breathed in a refreshing green note of verbena, a smell that was so quintessentially English that I felt suddenly nostalgic. It was a daffodil scent; it symbolized spring and the hope that spring always brings. And finally he held out the mimosa concrete for me. As I breathed in its heady aroma I forgot all about the noxious fumes I'd inhaled as I'd walked towards the Robertet factory.
• 6

  obsoleteSugar boiled down from cane juice to a solid mass.

  • The concrete is made by ingredients which are to remove the feculencies from the cane-juice as soon as expressed from the mill and which check fermentation; indeed juice may be kept for a week after the canes have been gruond, without turning acid, when these ingredients have been used.
  • Also molasses in the definition refers only to the product separated from the various sugar concretes specified in the purification of these raw sugars, while in trade terms what is defined under sugar cane syrup in the standards is often called molasses, the term "open kettle molasses" being used in this connection to indicate that the cane juice has been simply boiled down in open kettles.
• 7

  obsoleteAny solid mass formed by the coalescence of separate particles; a compound substance, a concretion.

  • And firſt, if I would now deal rigidly with my Adverſary, I might here make a great Queſtion of the very way of Probation which he and others employ, without the leaſt ſcruple, to evince, that the Bodies commonly cali'd mixt, are made up of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire, which they are pleas'd alſo to call Elements; namely that upon the ſuppos'd Analyſis made by the fire, of the former ſort of Concretes, there are wont to emerge Bodies reſembling thoſe which they take for the Elements.
  • Of this kind, I ſuppoſe, the Æther, that is the medium or fluid body, in which all other bodies do as it were ſwim and move; and particularly, the Air, which ſeems nothing elſe but a kind of tincture or ſolution of terreſtrial and aqueous particles diſſolv'd into it, and agitated by it, juſt as the tincture of Cocheneel is nothing but ſome finer diſſoluble parts of that Concrete lick'd up or diſſolv'd by the fluid water.

concreteverb/ˈkɒnkɹiːt/

• 1

  To cover with or encase in concrete (building material).

  • I hate grass, so I concreted over my lawn.
  • In odd moments David had made an estimate on the cost of shooting down the menace in the eastern tunnel drifting and concreting the gash which would be left by the blasting out of the fissure material.
• 2

  To solidify: to change from being abstract to being concrete (actual, real).

  • […] the necessity of recognizing this relation outwardly and of perfecting herself in the forms required to express the recognition, had moved her to such diligence and faithfulness in practicing these forms that this exercise soon concreted itself into habit; it became automatic and unconscious; then a natural result followed: […]
  • Just so economics has concreted the concept of capital. The law needs a term for the material and quasi-material objects of property.
• 3

  archaicTo unite or coalesce into a solid mass.

  • When any ſaline Liquor is evaporated to a Cuticle and let cool, the Salt concretes in regular Figures; which argues, that the Particles of the Salt before they concreted, floated in the Liquor at equal diſtances in rank and file, and by conſequence that they acted upon one another by ſome Power which at equal diſtances is equal, at unequal diſtances unequal.
  • The Blood of ſome Perſons who have dy'd of the Plague could not be made to concrete, by reaſon of the Putrefaction already begun.