attenuate
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attenuate
- /əˈtɛn.juˌeɪt/ UK, US
- /əˈten.jʉˌæɪt/ Australia
Where it comes from
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).
verb attenuates · attenuating · attenuated
- 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.
- To become thin or fine; to grow less.
- To weaken. We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagreness.
- To rarefy. "It speedily became apparent that the entire strangeness of our circumstances and surroundings—great loss of weight, attenuated but highly oxygenated air, consequent exaggeration of the results of muscular effort, rapid development of weird plants from obscure spores, lurid sky—was exciting my compa
- 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.
Similar: dilute, diminish, lessen, mitigate, slender, weaken
adjective more attenuate · most attenuate
- Slender, thin.
- Rarefied, thin, refined.
- Gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.
