What does concertinaing mean?
Concertinaing is the present participle of the verb 'to concertina', which means to collapse, crush, or fold into a series of compact pleats, in the manner of the bellows of a concertina, the small hexagonal free-reed instrument popularized in the nineteenth century. The verb is used both transitively and intransitively: crash investigators might describe a car's front end concertinaing against a wall, while a commuter might be caught concertinaing an umbrella shut. It also carries a figurative sense of moving or functioning through alternating compression and expansion, much as a player works the instrument's bellows. The word is most at home in British English, particularly in journalistic accounts of collisions, where 'concertinaed' vividly conveys telescoped, accordion-like destruction. Its enduring appeal lies in the immediate image it summons: rigid material buckling into neat, rhythmic folds.
verb (present participle and gerund)The present participle and gerund of the verb 'concertina': to collapse, crush, or fold together into compact pleats or folds like the bellows of a concertina, or to cause something to do so.
- To crush or be crushed into compact folds, especially describing metal or structures collapsing lengthwise on impact
- To move by compressing and expanding alternately, like a concertina's bellows
"The front of the car was concertinaed against the barrier, and footage showed it concertinaing on impact."
"The carriage telescoped into the one ahead, its frame concertinaing with a deafening shriek of metal."
"He stood there concertinaing the empty map back into its sleeve."
When engineers say a car 'concertinaed' on impact, they're comparing crumpling steel to the folding bellows of a 19th-century free-reed instrument invented in the 1830s.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of concertinaing
The word derives from the concertina, a free-reed musical instrument patented in England in the early 1840s by Charles Wheatstone (with rival claims for Carl Friedrich Uhlig's earlier German design). The name itself blends 'concert' — via Italian 'concerto' and ultimately Latin roots associated with striving together — with the Italian-style diminutive suffix '-ina', suggesting a small ensemble-like instrument. By extension, English speakers began using 'concertina' as a verb for anything that folded or collapsed like its bellows, and 'concertinaing' is that verb's present participle.
Related word forms
How concertinaing is actually used
Mostly British usage; especially common in journalism describing vehicle crashes and structural collapses. Figurative uses describe anything repeatedly expanding and contracting.
Easily confused with concertinaing
'Concerting' relates to arranging or coordinating something jointly (or appears in 'disconcerting'), whereas 'concertinaing' means crushing or folding into pleats like a concertina's bellows.