concomitant

English

WOTD – 12 April 2008

Etymology

First attested 1607; from Middle French concomitant, from Latin concomitāns, the present participle of Latin concomitor (“I accompany”), from con- (“together”) + comitor (“I accompany”), from comes (“companion”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kənˈkɒmɪtənt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /kənˈkɑːmətənt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adjective

concomitant (not comparable)

1. Accompanying; conjoining; attending; concurrent. [from early 17th c.]
   • John Locke

     It has pleased our wise Creator to annex to several objects, as also to several of our thoughts, a concomitant pleasure.

   • 1970, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, Bantam Books, pg. 41:

     The new technology on which super-industrialism is based, much of it blue-printed in American research laboratories, brings with it an inevitable acceleration of change in society and a concomitant speed-up of the pace of individual life as well.

Synonyms

• (following as a consequence): accompanying, adjoining, attendant, incidental

Translations

following as a consequence

• Bulgarian: съпътстващ (bg) (sǎpǎtstvašt)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 併發的 (zh), 并发的 (zh) (bìngfā de)

• Czech: doprovodný m
• French: concomitant (fr)
• German: damit einhergehend

• Greek: συνακόλουθος (el) m (synakólouthos)
• Italian: concomitante (it)
• Polish: współistniejący m
• Russian: сопутствующий (ru) (sopútstvujuščij)
• Spanish: concomitante (es)

Noun

concomitant (plural concomitants)

1. Something happening or existing at the same time.
   • 1970, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, Bantam Books, pg.93:

     The declining commitment to place is thus related not to mobility per se, but to a concomitant of mobility- the shorter duration of place relationships.

   • 1900, Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, Avon Books, (translated by James Strachey) pg. 301:

     It is also instructive to consider the relation of these dreams to anxiety dreams. In the dreams we have been discussing, a repressed wish has found a means of evading censorship—and the distortion which censorship involves. The invariable concomitant is that painful feelings are experienced in the dream.

2. (algebra) An invariant homogeneous polynomial in the coefficients of a form, a covariant variable, and a contravariant variable.

Synonyms

• (a concomitant event or situation): accompaniment, co-occurrence

Related terms

• concomitance
• concomitantly
• concomitate

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French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin concomitāns, the present participle of Latin concomitor (“I accompany”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃kɔmitɑ̃/

Adjective

concomitant (feminine singular concomitante, masculine plural concomitants, feminine plural concomitantes)

1. concomitant

Further reading

• “concomitant” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).