Number & MeasureGreek → English
Concentric
/kənˈsɛntrɪk/adjective
Having a common centre, as rings or circles nested inside each other.
The Greek roots
κέντρον
kéntron
sharp point, centre
Literally: “sharing one centre-point”
Follow a root:κέντρον9 words
The story of the word
κέντρον began as the goad for driving oxen, then named the fixed spike of a pair of compasses, then the point that spike stands on. Every centre in English descends from the sharp end of a stick. Concentric, with a Latin prefix bolted on the front, came into English in the late fourteenth century through the astronomy of nested spheres, where the whole argument was whether a planet's circle shared the earth's centre or not.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- late 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
centreeccentricepicentrecentrifugal
In a sentence
The blast left concentric rings of flattened trees.
A concentric contraction shortens the muscle while it works.