attenuate
verbEtymology
The verb is first attested in 1530, the adjective in 1626; borrowed from Latin attenuātus, the perfect passive participle of attenuō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from ad- (“to, towards, at”) + tenuo (“to make thin”), itself from tenuis (“thin”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix).
- borrowed from attenuātus
Definitions
To reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree.
- A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour, one, in a small, attenuated tone.
To make thinner, as by physically reshaping, starving, or decaying.
- Clumps of attenuated turkeys were suspended here and there.
- Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded.
To become thin or fine
To become thin or fine; to grow less.
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To weaken.
- We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagreness.
To rarefy.
To reduce the virulence of a bacterium or virus.
To reduce the amplitude of an electrical, radio, or optical signal.
Of a beer, to become less dense as a result of the conversion of sugar to alcohol.
- A beer which does not attenuate to the expected level in fermentation will have more residual sugar and thus be sweeter and heavier-bodied.
Slender, thin.
Rarefied, thin, refined.
Gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for attenuate. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA