Are all concrete words nouns?

No. Actions and sensory properties can also have concrete meanings.

Is imageability the same thing?

The concepts are related, but imageability concerns how readily a mental image is evoked, while concreteness concerns sensory or experiential reference under the chosen definition.

Can people disagree on a rating?

Yes. Experience, interpretation and the word sense they consider can affect their judgments.

AI Glossary / Natural language and speech / Beginner

Concrete word

Definition

A concrete word is a word whose meaning is closely connected to something perceptible through the senses or to a directly experienced action. Spoon and thunder are relatively concrete examples, whereas fairness and possibility are more abstract.

What it means

Concreteness concerns the kind of meaning a word evokes, not whether the word itself is visible on a page. A spoon can be seen and handled; thunder can be heard. A concept does not need to be a solid object to have a strong sensory connection.

The contrast with abstract words is useful, but it is often treated as a continuum rather than a perfect two-way division. Different senses and contexts can change the interpretation. The same word may refer to a physical object in one sentence and a less tangible idea in another.

In NLP and language research, concreteness can be represented with human ratings. Those scores summarize judgments collected under particular instructions. They are not universal physical measurements, and they should not be confused with truth, importance, familiarity or reading difficulty.

How it works

A rating study asks participants to judge how directly a word's meaning relates to sensory experience, using a defined scale. Researchers aggregate the responses and may retain information about disagreement. A lexicon then provides an approximate score for words included in the study.

A text-analysis system can look up those scores, while recording words that are missing. It must decide whether to count repeated occurrences, how to handle inflected forms and whether a score for an isolated word fits the sense used in the sentence.

Research instructions can include several senses and actions, although participants may still emphasize some kinds of experience more than others. This is a reason to inspect the rating method before interpreting an average. A document score can describe one selected lexical property without explaining the document's complete meaning or quality.

Three practical examples

A language researcher compares processing of more concrete and more abstract words while controlling other relevant word properties.
A writing team checks whether instructions identify visible controls and observable actions where readers need practical steps.
A text-analysis project records concreteness as one feature alongside context, frequency and sentence structure.

Think of it this way

Think of the difference between pointing to a ladder and explaining the idea of permission. One meaning can be anchored readily in a shared sensory example; the other usually needs a broader explanation.

The analogy does not rank their value. Permission may be the most important concept in a situation, and a concrete object can still be unfamiliar or difficult to understand.

Worked example

Interpreting a small set of invented ratings

Suppose a teaching lexicon uses a scale from 1 for very abstract to 5 for very concrete. Four words receive invented mean ratings of 4.8, 4.2, 2.0 and 1.4. Their unweighted average is (4.8+4.2+2.0+1.4)/4 = 3.1.

If a document repeats the first word three times and contains each other word once, a token-weighted average is (3×4.8+4.2+2.0+1.4)/6 = 22/6, approximately 3.67. The difference comes from the counting rule, not a change in the words' assigned values.

These are fabricated numbers for arithmetic, not ratings from a published lexicon. Neither average establishes that the document is clear or accurate. If a high-scoring word is used metaphorically, the isolated-word score may not even describe that occurrence well. Report both the aggregation policy and the coverage of the lexicon.

Illustrative case study

A fictional appliance company revises setup instructions. The draft says “ensure appropriate configuration,” which leaves new users unsure what to do. An editor replaces that passage with steps naming the relevant switch, cable and indicator, while preserving the required sequence.

The team uses concreteness as a prompt for review rather than an automatic target to maximize. Some abstract concepts, such as authorization, still need explicit explanation. Test readers attempt the task and identify where instructions remain unclear.

The company judges the revision by successful understanding and correct setup, not by a higher lexical score alone. The case illustrates how concrete wording can support a particular communication need without making abstract language inherently defective.

Common misconceptions and mistakes

Concrete words refer only to things that can be touched. Sounds and directly experienced actions can also be concrete.
Abstract words are meaningless. They express concepts that can be essential to reasoning and communication.
Concreteness equals specificity. A broad category can be concrete, while a highly specific rule can be abstract.
High concreteness guarantees clarity. Unfamiliar terms and confusing syntax can still obstruct understanding.
A lexicon score applies equally to every sense. Context can change the relevant meaning.

Business use

Concreteness can help evaluate instructional writing and design language experiments. Use it when sensory reference or observable action is relevant to the user's task. Combine it with checks for necessary detail, coherent sequence and audience knowledge.

For automated scoring, disclose the language, rating source, missing-word treatment and aggregation method. Avoid using a single score to rank authors or infer their ability. If the business goal is comprehension, test comprehension directly and use lexical features to diagnose problems rather than substitute for the outcome.

Check your understanding

Why do the two averages in the worked example differ even though the four word ratings remain unchanged?

Answer: One counts each word once, while the other weights repeated occurrences. A text-level score depends on how lexical values are aggregated as well as on the values themselves.

Related terms

Abstract word
Imageability
Word sense
concreteness rating
lexical semantics
readability
sensory grounding

Learn next

Read the instructions accompanying a concreteness lexicon. Compare a few words in literal and metaphorical sentences, then explain where an isolated-word rating helps and where context makes it insufficient.

Sources

Brysbaert, Warriner and Kuperman, Concreteness Ratings for 40 Thousand Generally Known English Word Lemmas: https://backoffice.biblio.ugent.be/download/5774089/5774125. Primary study definition, instructions and methodological qualifications.

Jurafsky and Martin, Lexicons for Sentiment, Affect, and Connotation: https://web.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/slp3/23.pdf. Concreteness as a lexical feature. All numbers in the worked example are invented for teaching.

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