concentrate
verb OPAL S
/ˈkɒnsntreɪt/
/ˈkɑːnsntreɪt/
Verb Forms
Phrasal Verbs| present simple I / you / we / they concentrate | /ˈkɒnsntreɪt/ /ˈkɑːnsntreɪt/ |
| he / she / it concentrates | /ˈkɒnsntreɪts/ /ˈkɑːnsntreɪts/ |
| past simple concentrated | /ˈkɒnsntreɪtɪd/ /ˈkɑːnsntreɪtɪd/ |
| past participle concentrated | /ˈkɒnsntreɪtɪd/ /ˈkɑːnsntreɪtɪd/ |
| -ing form concentrating | /ˈkɒnsntreɪtɪŋ/ /ˈkɑːnsntreɪtɪŋ/ |
- [intransitive, transitive] to give all your attention to something and not think about anything else
- I can't concentrate with all that noise going on.
- concentrate on something I struggled to concentrate on my job because I was worried about my son.
- concentrate on doing something She tried to concentrate on reading her book but couldn't.
- concentrate something Nothing concentrates the mind better than the knowledge that you could die tomorrow (= it makes you think very clearly).
- concentrate something on something After 1926 she concentrated her energies on her medical practice.
- concentrate something on doing something I decided to concentrate all my efforts on finding somewhere to live.
Extra Examples- I tried to work but I found I couldn't concentrate.
- I was tired and couldn't concentrate properly.
- She was sitting at her desk concentrating hard.
- She tried to concentrate, but her thoughts kept drifting back to the day before.
- We were told to concentrate on a black dot in the middle of the screen.
- We're concentrating even harder on giving quality service this year.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb- hard
- intensely
- intently
- …
- be unable to
- cannot
- be difficult to
- …
- on
- [transitive] concentrate something + adv./prep. to bring something together in one place
- Power is largely concentrated in the hands of a small elite.
- We need to concentrate resources on the most run-down areas.
- Fighting was concentrated around the towns to the north.
- Never concentrate the heat in one place for too long.
Extra Examples- These jobs are disproportionately concentrated in the service sector.
- The immigrant community is strongly concentrated geographically.
- Most of the country's industry is concentrated in the north.
- [transitive] concentrate something (specialist) to increase the strength of a substance by reducing its volume, for example by boiling it synonym reduce
Word Originmid 17th cent. (in the sense ‘bring towards a centre’): Latinized form of concentre, fromcon- ‘together’ + centrum ‘centre’ or from French concentrer ‘to concentrate’. Sense (1) dates from the early 20th cent.