attention
/əˈtɛn.ʃn̩/
attention noun: mental focus.
Noun
attention (countable and uncountable, plural attentions)
- Mental focus.
- Please direct your attention to the following words.
- Most of the pictures of common life that we meet with in books are drawn in the shape of novels, with the view of attracting the attention of indolent readers; the question with authors being, not of what can I inform my neighbour by which he may be improved in head or heart, mind or morals? but...1881, John Younger, “Introductory Chapter”, in Autobiography of John Younger, Shoemaker, St. Boswells, Kelso, Scotland: J. & J.H. Rutherfurd, pages x–xi
- An action or remark expressing concern for or interest in someone or something, especially romantic interest.
- She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper.1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter 3, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for...
- For some time past I have been the recipient of very marked attentions from a young lady.1910, Stephen Leacock, “How to Avoid Getting Married,”, in Literary Lapses
- A state of alertness in the standing position.
- The company will now come to attention.
- A kind of prioritisation technique in neural networks that assigns soft weights between tokens from two (or more) input sequences in order to compute the required output.
- The attention mechanism is an important part of these models and plays a very crucial role. Before Transformer models, the attention mechanism was proposed as a helper for improving conventional DL models such as RNNs.2021, Savas Yildirim, Meysam Asgari-Chenaghlu, Mastering Transformers […] , Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 26
Interjection
- Used as a command to bring soldiers to the attention position.
- A call for people to be quiet/stop doing what they are presently doing and pay heed to what they are to be told or shown.
attention meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
attention in Hindi
- mental focus
- ध्यान dhyān
- romantic interest
- आकर्षण ākarṣaṇ
- state of alertness in the standing position
- सावधान sāvdhān
attention in Tamil
- mental focus
- கவனம் kavaṉam, நாட்டம் nāṭṭam
attention in Marathi
- attention
- ध्यान dhyān, भान bhān
attention in Urdu
- mental focus
- تَوَجُّہ tavajju, تَوَجُّہْ tavajjuh, دِھیان dhiyān
More languagesFewer languages
- attention in Bengali
- মনোযোগ mônojog, গরজ goroj, পাত্তা patta, আমল amol
- attention in Telugu
- శ్రద్ధ śraddha
- attention in Malayalam
- ശ്രദ്ധ śraddha
- attention in Kannada
- ಗಮನ gamana
- attention in Punjabi
- ਸੁਰਤ surat, مونہہ mūṉh, ਚਿੱਤ citta, ਮਿਹਨਤ mihnat
- attention in Gujarati
- ધ્યાન dhyān, કાન kān, ભાન bhān
- attention in Sanskrit
- आदर ādara
- attention in Tagalog
- lingil, humanda, manda
- attention in Arabic
- اِهْتِمَام ihtimām, اِنْتِبَاه intibāh, تَوَجُّه tawajjuh
- attention in Malay
- sedia
- attention in Indonesian
- siap
- attention in Thai
- ความสนใจ kwaam-sǒn-jai, การเอาใจใส่ gaan-ao-jai-sài, แถวตรง tɛ̌ɛo-dtrong
- attention in Vietnamese
- chú ý
Examples of attention in a sentence
- But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...
- Lesper Killey was at her shoulder, jerking at the wash-faded denim of her jumper to get her attention.1959, Mari Sandoz, “Bone Joe and the Smokin' Woman”, in Hostiles and Friendlies: Selected Short Writings:
- Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.2012 March, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2...
Synonyms of attention
3 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of attention
| plural | attentions |
|---|
Origin of attention
From Middle English attencioun, borrowed from Latin attentio, attentionis, from attendere, past participle attentus (“to attend, give heed to”); see attend. Equivalent to attend + -tion.
Words formed from attention
- at attention
- attentional
- attention deficit disorder
- attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
- attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
- attention economy
- attention getter
- attention-grabbing
- attentionless
- attention line
- attention-seeker
- attention seeker
- attention-seeking
- attention span
- attention whore
- attract attention
- care and attention
- center of attention
- centre of attention
- cross-attention
- disattention
- draw attention
- hyperattention
- meta-attention
- nonattention
- overattention
- pay attention
- preattention
- self-attention
- snap to attention
- stand at attention
- stand to attention
- thank you for your attention to this matter
- unattention
- underattention
Phrases with attention
- drew attention
- paid attention
- pays attention
- attention lines
- attention spans
- drawn attention
- draws attention
- attention whored
- attention whores
- paying attention
- attention getters
- attention seekers
17 more phrasesFewer phrases
- attention whoring
- drawing attention
- attracts attention
- snaps to attention
- snapt to attention
- stood at attention
- attention economies
- attracted attention
- stands at attention
- attracting attention
- centers of attention
- centres of attention
- snapped to attention
- snapping to attention
- standing at attention
- attention deficit disorders
- attention deficit hyperactivity disordered
Questions about attention
- What does attention mean?
- Attention means mental focus.
- What is attention in Hindi?
- Attention in Hindi is ध्यान (dhyān), आकर्षण (ākarṣaṇ), सावधान (sāvdhān). See Attention meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use attention in a sentence?
- But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.
- What part of speech is attention?
- Attention can be a noun or an interjection.
- How do you pronounce attention?
- Attention is pronounced /əˈtɛn.ʃn̩/.
- What is the plural of attention?
- The plural of attention is attentions.
Words near attention in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: attention (page history and authors); ध्यान (Marathi) (page history and authors); আমল (Bengali) (page history and authors); శ్రద్ధ (Telugu) (page history and authors); ಗಮನ (Kannada) (page history and authors); مونہہ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); કાન (Gujarati) (page history and authors); आदर (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-attention.wav.
Cite this entry: “attention.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/attention. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.