attrit

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attrit

/əˈtɹɪt/

Where it comes from

From Latin attrītus, past participle of atterō. Said by multiple dictionaries to be a back-formation from attrition, but it is not a recent one, being centuries old.

verb attrits · attriting · attritting · attrited · attritted

To wear down through attrition, especially mechanical attrition. […] pebbles of vast size, or blocks of stone, attrited by water to smoothness, conjoined by a cement of mud.
To engage in attrition; to quit or drop out. the relatives who had been helping slipped away as I grew older, attriting for various reasons that all amounted to the same reason.
To be reduced in quantity through attrition. The interference theory of second language loss holds that forgetting is actually interference between the attriting language and the language replacing it.
To lose, or to kill, troops by attrition due to sustained firepower. The primary objective is to attrit the units sufficiently so that they cannot close with the units in contact.

noun attrits · attrite

countable One who voluntarily or involuntarily leaves a company; a termed employee. Throughout the early part of the meeting, a human resources manager kept talking about “attrits," which we thought was some kind of financial product they were reducing or eliminating. It wasn't until she mentioned "minimizing severance options" that we realized she was talking about people.
Similar: term

Translations

Every language

verb wear down through attrition

Português	desgastar

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MLA

"attrit." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/attrit. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

attrit. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/attrit

Chicago

"attrit." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/attrit.

BibTeX

@misc{attrit_2026,
  title = {attrit},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/attrit},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}