concrete

1. (countable, uncountable) A building material created by mixing cement, water, and aggregate such as gravel and sand.Examples: "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."; "In the next few decades, says Van Oss, building codes will change, opening the way for innovative materials. But while new concretes may be stronger and more durable, they are also more expensive - and whether the tendency of developers and the public to focus on short-term rather than long-term costs will also change is another matter."countableuncountable

2. (countable, uncountable) A building material created by mixing cement, water, and aggregate such as gravel and sand.Examples: "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."countableespeciallyuncountable

3. (logic) A term designating both a quality and the subject in which it exists; a concrete term.Examples: "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."; "With regard to the physical domain, concretes are as a rule perceived through the senses."countableuncountable

4. (US) A dessert of frozen custard with various toppings.Examples: "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."; "Once there, she opts for a concrete -- Nielsen's thick, spoonable, frozen vanilla custard mixed with add-ins like Oreos or strawberries or chocolate chips and piled into a 16-ounce cup for $4.35. She can't eat it all, of course, which is why a couple of friends need to come along as well."UScountableuncountable

5. (perfumery) An extract of herbal materials that has a semi-solid consistency, especially when such materials are partly aromatic.Examples: "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."; "Concretes, the waxy extracts produced by solvent extraction, were first introduced by the house of Roure, Bertrand Fils in Grasse, in 1873, and in 1888 Joseph Robert succeeded in developing a large-scale process for the solvent extraction of fragrant plants. This process was brought into commercial production two years later."countableuncountable

6. (possibly obsolete) Sugar boiled down from cane juice to a solid mass.Examples: "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."; "In some areas of the Far East, for example, factories producing sugar concrete may process as little as one ton of sugar cane per day and a total of not over 100 tons of sugar cane per year. From this we go to the other extreme where factories in the West Indies and Mexico process as much as 20,000 tons of sugar cane per day and 2 to 3 million tons of sugar cane per year."countableobsoletepossiblyuncountable

1. (usually transitive) To cover with or encase in concrete (building material).Examples: "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."; "At first they could not remember anything out of the ordinary, and then the farmer's wife remarked that they had changed the pattern of the milking parlour by concreting the area where the cows were waiting."transitiveusually

2. (usually transitive) To solidify: to change from being abstract to being concrete (actual, real).Examples: "[…] 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."; "It is only such a logos that can concrete the concrete and make reality real."transitiveusually

3. (intransitive, archaic) To unite or coalesce into a solid mass.Examples: "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."; "At three years old, her mother observed something come from her, as she walked across the room, which, when examined, was found to be fat in a liquid state, which concreted when cold."archaicintransitive