Concrete

(Synop., § 130), a. [Lat. concretus, p. p. of concrescere, to grow together, from con and crescere, to grow, v. inchoative of creare, to create.]

1Sense 1. United in growth; hence, formed by coalition of separate particles into one body; consistent in a mass; united in a solid form. “The first concrete state or consistent surface of the chaos.” Burnet.

2Sense 2. (Logic.) Conceived as in a subject; conceived as a subject with its attributes; not abstract; as, the white snow, where whiteness is considered as existing in the snow, and not as a separate thing.

Concrete terms, while they express the quality, do also express, or imply, or refer to a subject to which they belong. Watts.

Concrete number, a number associated with, or applied to, a particular object, as three men, five days, &c., as distinguished from an abstract number, or one used without reference to a particular object. Barlow. Bailey.— Concrete sound or movement of the voice, one which slides continuously up or down, as distinguished from a discrete movement, in which the voice leaps at once from one line of pitch to another. Rush.

v. i. [imp. & p. p. CONCRETED; p. pr. & vb. n. CONCRETING.] To unite or coalesce, as separate particles, into a mass or solid body.

☞ Applied to some substances, it is equivalent to indurate; as, metallic matter concretes into a hard body; applied to others, it is equivalent to congeal, thicken, inspissate, coagulate, as in the concretion of blood. “The blood of some who died of the plague could not be made to concrete.” Arbuthnot.

v. t. To form into a mass, as by the cohesion or coalescence of separate particles.

There are in our inferior world divers bodies that are concreted out of others. Hale.