ATTENUATE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Attenuate

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/ətˈɛnjuˌeɪt/ Listen

verb

Attenuate v. t. (past & past part. attenuated; pres. part. attenuating)

To make thin or slender, as by mechanical or chemical action upon inanimate objects, or by the effects of starvation, disease, etc., upon living bodies.

To make thin or less consistent; to render less viscid or dense; to rarefy. Specifically: To subtilize, as the humors of the body, or to break them into finer parts.

To lessen the amount, force, or value of; to make less complex; to weaken. "To undersell our rivals... has led the manufacturer to... attenuate his processes, in the allotment of tasks, to an extreme point." "We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagerness."

Attenuate v. i. To become thin, slender, or fine; to grow less; to lessen. "The attention attenuates as its sphere contracts."

adjective

Attenuated, Attenuate adj.

Made thin or slender.

Made thin or less viscid; rarefied.

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Etymology of 'Attenuate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Attenuate" Quotes from Famous Books

... elevated margins to the segments, and rather persistent on the tree. The nuts are nearly as pale as in the Shagbark, conspicuously brown striped, slightly 4-celled at the very base, and with a wall only 1 mm. thick. As is usual in ALBA, they are upwardly attenuate, and frequently the kernel is abortive. (Trelease, Wm., 7th Report Mo. ...

— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume

... as if she hadn't been, couldn't be, hated to be, in such delicate matters, literal, she was moved to attenuate. "Oh, I don't ...

— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... of the person to whom he has devoted his heart, and employ all his skill in correcting them by affection, instead of increasing his own weakness by leaning on them. It is necessary, therefore, neither to admire nor to dislike the defects of the loved one, but to try and attenuate them by aid of ...

— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... beings is universal, against that has to be set the fact that the whole tendency of social development is to narrow the range of the belief, to restrict the scope of its authority, and to so attenuate it that it becomes of no value precisely where it is supposed to be of most use. The belief in God is least questioned where civilisation is lowest; it is called into the most serious question where civilisation is most advanced. To-day the belief in God is ...

— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... advanced state of knowledge and civilization, do we occasionally hear ranted from the pulpit denunciations of dancing, as a sinful and God-offending amusement. Such men should not be permitted to teach or preach—it is to attenuate folly and fanaticism, to circumscribe the happiness of ...

— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

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