Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Attenuate

At·ten′u·ate (ăt·tĕn′ū·āt), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Attenuated; p. pr. & vb. n. Attenuating.] [L. attenuatus, p. p. of attenuare; ad + tenuare to make thin, tenuis thin. See Thin.] 1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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. I. Taylor.

We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagerness. Sir F. Palgrave.

At·ten′u·ate, v. i. To become thin, slender, or fine; to grow less; to lessen.

The attention attenuates as its sphere contracts. Coleridge.

At·ten′u·ate, At·ten′u·a′ted, a. [L. attenuatus, p. p.] 1. Made thin or slender.

2. Made thin or less viscid; rarefied. Bacon.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.