The Collaborative International Dictionary
concentrated \concentrated\ adj.
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Having a high density of (the indicated substance); as, a narrow thread of concentrated ore.
Note: [Narrower terms: undiluted (vs. diluted)]
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Gathered together or made less diffuse; as, their concentrated efforts; his concentrated attention. Opposite of distributed or diffused.
Note: [Narrower terms: bunched, bunchy, clustered; centered, centred, centralized, focused; undivided] [Also See: compact.]
Intense; in an extreme degree; -- of mental phenomena; as, her concentrated passion held them at bay.
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being the most concentrated solution possible at a given temperature; unable to dissolve still more of a substance. Opposite of dilute or unsaturated.
Note: [Narrower terms: supersaturated]
Syn: saturated.
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reduced to a stronger or more concentrated form; as, concentrated sulfuric acid. Opposite of diluted.
Syn: condensed.
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characterized by intensity; especially when imposed from without; -- of actions; as, concentrated study.
Syn: intensive.
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characterized by mental concentration.
Syn: intent.
centralized \centralized\ adj.
drawn toward a center or brought under the control of a central authority; as, centralized control of emergency relief efforts; centralized government. Opposite of decentralized.
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concentrated on or clustered around a central point or purpose; -- contrasting with distributed.
Syn: centered, centred, focused.
Wiktionary
1 Having things physically towards the center; consolidated or concentrated 2 Having power concentrated in a single, central authority alt. 1 Having things physically towards the center; consolidated or concentrated 2 Having power concentrated in a single, central authority v
(en-past of: centralize)
WordNet
adj. drawn toward a center or brought under the control of a central authority; "centralized control of emergency relief efforts"; "centralized government" [syn: centralised] [ant: decentralized]
concentrated on or clustered around a central point or purpose [syn: centered, centred, centralised, focused]
Usage examples of "centralized".
Whites had arrived, imposed centralized government, and brought material goods whose value New Guineans instantly recognized, ranging from steel axes, matches, and medicines to clothing, soft drinks, and umbrellas.
White immigrants to Australia built a literate, industrialized, politically centralized, democratic state based on metal tools and on food production, all within a century of colonizing a continent where the Aborigines had been living as tribal hunter-gatherers without metal for at least 40,000 years.
Water control systems also appear to have been associated with centralized political organization in some other areas of the world, including the Indus Valley of the Indian subcontinent, the Yellow and Yangtze Valleys of China, the Maya lowlands of Mesoamerica, and the coastal desert of Peru.
The Inca Empire also had a centralized political organization, but that actually worked to its disadvantage, because Pizarro seized the Inca chain of command intact by capturing Atahuallpa.
The resulting food surpluses, and (in some areas) the animal-based means of transporting those surpluses, were a prerequisite for the development of settled, politically centralized, socially stratified, economically complex, technologically innovative societies.
Farmers tend to breathe out nastier germs, to own better weapons and armor, to own more-powerful technology in general, and to live under centralized governments with literate elites better able to wage wars of conquest.
Hence the next four chapters will explore how the ultimate cause of food production led to the proximate causes of germs, literacy, technology, and centralized government.
Key hallmarks of this transition included the development of agriculture, metallurgy, complex technology, centralized government, and writing.
All of the likely or possible independent inventions of writing (in Sumer, Mexico, China, and Egypt), and all of the early adaptations of those invented systems (for example, those in Crete, Iran, Turkey, the Indus Valley, and the Maya area), involved socially stratified societies with complex and centralized political institutions, whose necessary relation to food production we shall explore in a later chapter.
The remaining four proposed factors—war, centralized government, climate, and resource abundance—appear to act inconsistently: sometimes they stimulate technology, sometimes they inhibit it.
Descendants of those societies that achieved centralized government and organized religion earliest ended up dominating the modernworld.
Instead of the decentralized anarchy of a village meeting, the chief was a permanent centralized authority, made all significant decisions, and had a monopoly on critical information (such as what a neighboring chief was privately threatening, or what harvest the gods had supposedly promised).
This is potentially a big and underappreciated advantage of centralized societies over noncentralized ones.
Even the earliest Mesopotamian states exercised centralized control of their economies.
First, a centralized decision maker has the advantage at concentrating troops and resources.