ATTENUATE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Attenuate

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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."

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Etymology of 'Attenuate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Attenuate" Quotes from Famous Books

... hears, beyond the grey bent's silken waves, The foam-embroidered waters ever cast On sighing sands and into echoing caves. And from the west, where the last sunset glow Still lingers on the border hills afar, Come pastoral sounds, attenuate and low, Thence where the night shall bring, 'neath cloud and star, Silence to yearn o'er folk worn with day's strife, Lost in blank sleep to hope, ...

— Songs, Sonnets & Miscellaneous Poems • Thomas Runciman

... to attenuate and disperse the rather tender personalities he had opened up with the new Avice's mother, Pierston never exactly defined. Perhaps she saw more than he thought she saw—read something in his face—knew that about his nature which he gave her no credit for knowing. Anyhow, ...

— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... now, of my desire complaining sore, shall I * Bewail my parting from my fere compelld thus to fly? Flames rage within what underlies my ribs, yet hide them I * In deepest secret dreading aye the jealous hostile spy: I am grown as lean, attenuate as any pick of tooth,[FN54] * By sore estrangement, absence, ardour, ceaseless sob and sigh. Where is the eye of my beloved to see how I'm become * Like tree stripped bare of leafage left to linger and to die. They tyrannised over me whom they confined in place * Whereto ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... as the clock strikes ten, the doors opening reveal a lady eating an apple or any convenient edible, while a gentleman who stands near points to the clock and then at her. This being correctly guessed to represent "attenuate" (at ten you ate), the other side goes from the room and the previous ...

— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger

... perfect parade of all his teeth, in which it seemed to her she could read the disgust he didn't quite like to express at this departure from the pliability she had practically promised. But before she could attenuate in any way the crudity of her collapse he gave an impatient jerk which took him to the window. She heard a vehicle stop; Beale looked out; then he freshly faced her. He still said nothing, but she knew the ...

— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

Words linked to "Attenuate" : rarefy, attenuated, reduced, attenuator, faded, chemical science, weakened, weaken, decreased, chemistry