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Attachment   /ətˈætʃmənt/   Listen
noun
Attachment  n.  
1.
The act attaching, or state of being attached; close adherence or affection; fidelity; regard; any passion of affection that binds a person; as, an attachment to a friend, or to a party.
2.
That by which one thing is attached to another; connection; as, to cut the attachments of a muscle. "The human mind... has exhausted its forces in the endeavor to rend the supernatural from its attachment to this history."
3.
Something attached; some adjunct attached to an instrument, machine, or other object; as, a sewing machine attachment (i. e., a device attached to a sewing machine to enable it to do special work, as tucking, etc.).
4.
(Giv. Law)
(a)
A seizure or taking into custody by virtue of a legal process.
(b)
The writ or percept commanding such seizure or taking. Note: The term is applied to a seizure or taking either of persons or property. In the serving of process in a civil suit, it is most generally applied to the taking of property, whether at common law, as a species of distress, to compel defendant's appearance, or under local statutes, to satisfy the judgment the plaintiff may recover in the action. The terms attachment and arrest are both applied to the taking or apprehension of a defendant to compel an appearance in a civil action. Attachments are issued at common law and in chancery, against persons for contempt of court. In England, attachment is employed in some cases where capias is with us, as against a witness who fails to appear on summons. In some of the New England States a writ of attachment is a species of mesne process upon which the property of a defendant may be seized at the commencement of a suit and before summons to him, and may be held to satisfy the judgment the plaintiff may recover. In other States this writ can issue only against absconding debtors and those who conceal themselves. See Foreign, Garnishment, Trustee process.
Synonyms: Attachment, Affection. The leading idea of affection is that of warmth and tenderness; the leading idea of attachment is that of being bound to some object by strong and lasting ties. There is more of sentiment (and sometimes of romance) in affection, and more of principle in preserving attachment. We speak of the ardor of the one, and the fidelity of the other. There is another distinction in the use and application of these words. The term attachment is applied to a wider range of objects than affection. A man may have a strong attachment to his country, to his profession, to his principles, and even to favorite places; in respect to none of these could we use the word affection.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Attachment" Quotes from Famous Books



... a snow- white steed, that it is not love. You, probably, like the rest, have read too many romantic novels. When you come to know life better you will realize that moral equality and intellectual affinity promise a much safer union than a violent romantic attachment." ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... secure satisfactory results from any union, there should be some inherent, constitutional, or fundamental difference; some such difference as we often see in the human family to be the ground of preference and attachment; as men generally prefer women of a feminine rather than a masculine type. All desire, in a mate, properties and qualities not possessed by themselves. Now assuming as Mr. Walker holds, that organization is transmitted by halves, and that, in animals ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... [Graydon's] opportunity was indeed unprecedented; and had he but more accurately appreciated the unstable political conditions of the country, the susceptibilities, suspicious and precarious tenure of ministers and placemen, the temper of the priesthood, their sensitive attachment to certain tenets of their faith, and their enormous influence over the civil power, there is reason to believe that he might have brought his mission to a happier and more ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... successively Bishop of Hereford, Norwich, and Ely, died April 14, 1667, aged eighty-one years and upwards. He was distinguished for his extraordinary attachment to the royal cause, having suffered an imprisonment for eighteen years with singular ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... in 1715, the village of Crieff, Perthshire, was burnt by the Highland army, on account of the attachment of its inhabitants to the royal cause. It has been stated that, some years ago, the descendants of the sufferers received from government a sum equivalent to a certain proportion of the loss which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various


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