Make Your Point: CONCUR

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pronounce CONCUR:

kun KUR

connect this word to others:

The word concur is one of those highly formal ones that you might use to talk about a legal argument, or a medical diagnosis.

Like Frank, the con artist posing as a doctor in Catch Me If You Can.

Doctor Ashland (left): "Bicycle accident. A fracture of the tibia, about five inches below the patella."
Frank (center): "Doctor Hollis, do you concur?"
Doctor Hollis (right): "Concur with what, sir? ... It was a bicycle accident. The boy told us."

(Source)

Frank is repeating a phrase he heard on TV. But you're supposed to concur with opinions or conclusions, not observable facts. Awkward.

To concur is to agree, to have the same viewpoint as someone else. Etymologically, it's "to flow together," which I think is lovely. It traces to the Latin currere, meaning "to flow, or to run," and it's related to all kinds of words about literal and figurative running or flowing, like course, current, cursive, currency, curriculum, incur, recur, occur, corral, cursor, precursor, and d__curs___.

Can you recall that last one? It means "running (or rambling) from topic to topic."

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

"Concur" has Latin bits that literally mean "to flow together." In English, we first used it to mean "to collide: to crash together." But over time, we used it for more harmonious actions: "to happen together," and "to work together."

These days, we most often use it to mean "to agree with someone else." That is, when you concur with someone, or when you concur that something is true, you agree, as if your thoughts are flowing together with that person or that idea.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the intransitive kind: "She concurred with us;" "She concurred with our recommendations;" "We made some recommendations, and she concurred."

Other forms:

The other verb forms are "concurred" and "concurring."

The adjective is "concurring," as in "concurring opinions" or "concurring remarks."

(The adjective "concurrent" usually means "happening at the same time," not "agreeing in opinion.")

The noun is "concurrence, as in "She's in concurrence with us" or "We can't do it without her concurrence."

how to use it:

Pick the common but ultra-formal verb "concur" when you want to sound serious, academic, professional, or businesslike.

Say that someone concurs with someone else: "We think the US healthcare system needs reforming, and he concurs with us."

Or, say that someone concurs with some idea, opinion, judgment, analysis, or conclusion: "He concurs with the need to reform our healthcare system."

Or, say that someone concurs that something is true: "He concurs that the US healthcare system needs reforming."

Or both: "He concurs with us that the US healthcare system needs reforming."

examples:

"If what [Aristotle] means is that rhetoric needs to sound right, and good rhetoric always does sound right, and that 'sounding right' is impossible to set a definition for... well, I concur."
— Sam Leith, Words Like Loaded Pistols, 2012

"Parents have the strongest influence on their children's decisions about underage drinking. That means we need to start the conversation about alcohol consumption with our children and we need to do it early. Many experts concur that it's best to have a more casual, ongoing dialogue throughout childhood and adolescence."
— Lindsay Karp, Salon, 16 January 2023

has this page helped you understand "concur"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "concur" without saying "to have the same opinion" or "to come to the same conclusion."

try it out:

Here's a writer for Scientific American, describing how a scientist and a philosopher resolved a decades-old bet:

"They agreed that, for Koch to win, the evidence for a neural signature of consciousness must be 'clear.' That word 'clear' doomed Koch. 'It's clear that things are not clear,' Chalmers said, and Koch, grimacing, concurred. He stalked off the stage and reappeared with a case of wine as the audience laughed and applauded."

With this in mind as an example, talk about a time you begrudgingly concurred with someone, or a time someone begrudgingly concurred with you.

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for this month is "Spot the Sharper Image."

Which of the two items described below is a real one that you can order from the Sharper Image catalog, and which one did I invent? Scroll to the bottom to see which one is real!

Try this last set today:

Item A: Ride-on Excavator. "Get ready for backyard fun. Ideal for digging and dumping gravel, sand and snow."

Item B: Toaster Pastry Dispenser. "Enjoying your favorite breakfast treats has never been easier."

review this word:

1. The opposite of CONCUR is

A. DETRACT.
B. DESTROY.
C. DISAGREE.

2. In a short story by Jhumpa Lahiri, two characters sat "side by side at a round table with a revolving platter of spareribs and egg rolls and chicken wings, which, they concurred, _____."

A. had gotten cold
B. all tasted the same
C. left spots of grease on the white tablecloth

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
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A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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