Definition of CONCOMITANT

Did You Know?

Adjective

Concomitant was introduced into English at a time when many people were criticizing the use of Latinate forms in favor of more "native" words from Old English. As a descendant of Latin concomitari ("to accompany") and ultimately of "comes," the Latin word for companion, "concomitant" may well have been initially derided as an ostentatious inkhorn term. Indeed, two associated words, the verb concomitate, meaning "to accompany," and another adjective, concomitaneous, meaning "of a concomitant nature," didn't survive to accompany "concomitant" into the 18th century.

Examples of concomitant in a Sentence

Adjective … Christopher Walken delivers his customary edge without any of his clichéd, concomitant weirdness. — Stephen Whitty, Entertainment Weekly, 12 Feb. 1999 The Lincoln and Johnson plans for settling the problems of peace and freedom never seriously touched on the concomitant problem of equality. — John Hope Franklin, "The Two Worlds of Race," 1965, in Race and History, 1989 But it was observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them. — Thomas Jefferson 4 Feb. 1818, in Thomas Jefferson: Writings, 1984 The drug's risks increase with the concomitant use of alcohol. an improvement in the facilities led to a concomitant improvement in morale Noun In the local bickering which was a concomitant of the grand campaigns of the wars, there may have been considerable fighting around fortifications, even if on a relatively small and brief scale. — Anthony Goodman, The War of the Roses, (1981) 1996 … there is a demand for schools, professional services, and such other concomitants of a full society as courthouses and jails. — Anthony Bailey, New Yorker, 25 May 1987 hunger, a lack of education, and other concomitants of poverty disease is all too often one of the concomitants of poverty

Recent Examples on the Web: Adjective Trump’s impulsive tweeting and concomitant error rate seem to have grown this year as his frustrations with topics that upset him, from the Mueller report and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to immigration and 2020, have intensified. — Sarah Lyall, BostonGlobe.com, "There or their? Sticklers twitch at President Trump’s posts," 31 Aug. 2019 But, as the buildings and their concomitant problems begin to fade away, a different menace is filling the lots left behind. — Lucas Joel, Quartz, "Detroit accidentally caused a pollen crisis by bulldozing the city’s abandoned areas," 15 Aug. 2019 Exacerbating all this, of course, is Africa’s population explosion and the concomitant increase in the numbers of cattle, goats, horses, and donkeys (lion prey) that rural people keep in their villages and bomas. — Klara Glowczewska, Town & Country, "How the New Lion King Film Could Help the Real-Life Lion Crisis," 1 Aug. 2019 The book tour and its concomitant responsibilities are necessary evils to sell books. — Sarah Menkedick, Longreads, "The First Book," 24 July 2019 Greg Becker, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, echoed Ersek in pinpointing trade issues and a concomitant slowdown in global growth as root causes of an eventual downturn. — Robert Hackett, Fortune, "What CEOs, Bankers, and Tech Execs Think About a Coming Recession," 29 July 2019 This near overarching influence, of a mostly unregulated religious scholarly base, and the absence of a contextual system of social justice, has had a concomitant effect on the region’s social development. — Fakhrriyyah Hashim, Quartz Africa, "How Nigeria’s conservative northern region came to terms with its MeToo movement," 22 July 2019 But Huynh and others in the field said that the decrease did not necessarily reflect a concomitant decline in substance abuse. — Shari Rudavsky, Indianapolis Star, "Marion County overdose deaths decline but that doesn't necessarily mean less drug use.," 19 July 2019 Though there is no one cause for its growing prevalence, social media, the 24/7 news cycle and the concomitant decline in civility surely play a role. — Caryn M. Sullivan, Twin Cities, "Caryn Sullivan: Mental illness: Breaking the silence and making a plan," 9 June 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'concomitant.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.