Word.ws English Dictionary

attenuate

Syllables: at·ten·u·ateUK/əˈtɛn.juˌeɪt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/əˈten.jʉˌæɪt/

attenuate verb: to reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree.

Verb

attenuate (third-person singular simple present attenuates, present participle attenuating, simple past and past participle attenuated)

  1. (transitive) 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.1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter 40, in Far From the Madding Crowd
  2. (transitive) To make thinner, as by physically reshaping, starving, or decaying.
    • Clumps of attenuated turkeys were suspended here and there.1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 4, in His New Mittens
    • Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded.1906, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 1, in The Malefactor
  3. (intransitive) To become thin or fine; to grow less.
  4. (transitive) To weaken.
    • We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagreness.1851, Sir Francis Palgrave, chapter IV, in The History of Normandy and of England
  5. (transitive) 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...1900 December – 1901 August, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 23, in The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, […], published 1901, →OCLC
  6. (transitive) To reduce the virulence of a bacterium or virus.
  7. (transitive) To reduce the amplitude of an electrical, radio, or optical signal.
  8. 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.2009 July–August, John Palmer, “Attenuation: Advanced Brewing”, in Brew Your Own, archived from the original on 06 Oct 2013

Adjective

attenuate (comparative more attenuate, superlative most attenuate)

  1. Slender, thin.
  2. Rarefied, thin, refined.
  3. Gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.

attenuate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Kannada

attenuate in Tamil

மட்டுப்படுத்து, வலு ஒடுக்கு, வலுக்குறைத்தல், வீரியம் குறைப்பு, மெல்லிய, தளர்த்தியான

attenuate in Urdu

دبلا ہونا, کمزور کرنا, پتلا کرنا

attenuate in Bengali

হ্রাস করা, দুর্বল করা

attenuate in Kannada

ಸೊಪ್ಪು, ತೆಳ್ಳಗಾಗು
More languagesFewer languages
attenuate in Sanskrit
कर्शयति karśáyati

Synonyms of attenuate

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of attenuate

Forms of attenuate

Verb
third-person singular presentattenuates
present participleattenuating
past participleattenuated
pastattenuated
Adjective
comparativemore attenuate
superlativemost attenuate

Past tense of attenuate: attenuated

Origin of attenuate

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).

Words formed from attenuate

Questions about attenuate

What does attenuate mean?
Attenuate means to reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree.
What is attenuate in Tamil?
Attenuate in Tamil is மட்டுப்படுத்து, வலு ஒடுக்கு, வலுக்குறைத்தல். See Attenuate meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is attenuate?
Attenuate can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce attenuate?
Attenuate is pronounced /əˈtɛn.juˌeɪt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of attenuate?
The past tense of attenuate is attenuated.

Words near attenuate in the dictionary

  1. attenuable
  2. attenuance
  3. attenuances
  4. attenuant
  5. attenuants
  6. attenuate
  7. attenuated
  8. attenuated bluet
  9. attenuated bluets
  10. attenuately
  11. attenuates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: attenuate (page history and authors); attenuate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); attenuate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); attenuate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); attenuate (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); कर्शयति (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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Cite this entry: “attenuate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/attenuate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.