a. and sb. [ad. L. concomitānt-em, pr. pple. of concomitāri to accompany, go with: see CONCOMITATE.]
A. adj. Going together, accompanying, concurrent, attendant. Const. with († of, † to).
1607. Topsell, Serpents (1653), 611. From the natural concomitant quality of heat, with exspiration, respiration, and inspiration.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. II. iv. Either concomitant, assisting, or sole causes … of melancholy.
1651. Cartwright, Cert. Relig., I. 166. That which was secret, yet was concomitant of that which was publike.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 104, ¶ 1. So certainly is Decency concomitant to Virtue.
1799. Kirwan, Geol. Ess., 373. The concomitant limestone also contains marine petrifactions.
1856. Mill, Logic, I. 449. The law … admits of corroboration by the Method of Concomitant Variations.
1864. Bowen, Logic, x. (1870), 333. Every event has … a crowd of concomitant circumstances.
B. sb. 1. An attendant state, quality, circumstance, or thing; an accompaniment.
[1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., I. viii. 42. Virgill did excellently … couple the knowledge of causes, and the conquest of all fears, together as Concomitantia.]
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. iii. v. Death is not so terrible in it selfe, as the concomitants of it.
1682. Norris, Hierocles, 14. This reverence of an Oath is … the constant attendant and concomitant of Piety.
1709. Prior, Paulo Purganti. And for Tobacco (who could bear it?) Filthy Concomitant of Claret.
1750. Johnson, Rambl., No. 79, ¶ 7. Suspicion is justly appointed the concomitant of guilt.
1846. Prescott, Ferd. & Is., I. i. 96. Wealth with its usual concomitants, elegance and comfort.
† 2. A person that accompanies; a companion.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett., I. I. xx. You are thus my concomitant through new places.
1651. Reliq. Wotton., 8. [He] made him the chief concomitant of his heir apparant.
1698. Phil. Trans., XX. 242. His Concomitants and Assistants in the Operations.
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., II. I find this person often introduced as a concomitant of Psuche.
3. Math. (See quot.)
1853. Sylvester, in Phil. Trans., CXLIII. I. 543. Concomitant. Nomen generalissimum for a form invariantively connected with a given form or system of forms.
1859. Salmon, Higher Algebra (1866), 104. Dr. Sylvester uses the name concomitant as a general word to include all functions whose relations to the quantic are unaltered by linear transformation, and he calls the functions now under consideration mixed concomitants.
