attrit
/əˈtɹɪt/
attrit verb: to wear down through attrition, especially mechanical attrition.
Verb
attrit (third-person singular simple present attrits, present participle attriting or (uncommon) attritting, simple past and past participle attrited or (uncommon) 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.1858, James Prinsep, Essays on Indian Antiquities, Historic, Numismatic, and Palæographic, page 111
- 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.1997, Lisa Scottoline, Legal Tender, →ISBN, page 77
- 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.2001, Lynne Hansen, “Language Attrition in Contexts of Japanese Bilingualism”, in Studies in Japanese Bilingualism, →ISBN, page 359
- 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.2001, John Matsumura, Lightning Over Water: Sharpening America's Light Forces for Rapid Missions, →ISBN, page 124
Noun
attrit (plural attrits)
- 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.2009, Alan Weiss, Nancy MacKay, The Talent Advantage
- Synonyms:
- term
attrit meaning in Tamil
attrit in Tamil
- தேய்
Synonyms of attrit
Forms of attrit
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | attrits |
| present participle | attriting |
| present participle uncommon | attritting |
| past participle | attrited |
| past | attrited |
| past participle uncommon | attritted |
| past uncommon | attritted |
| alternative form | attrite |
| Noun | |
| plural | attrits |
Origin of attrit
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.
Words formed from attrit
Questions about attrit
- What does attrit mean?
- Attrit means to wear down through attrition, especially mechanical attrition.
- What is attrit in Tamil?
- Attrit in Tamil is தேய். See Attrit meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is attrit?
- Attrit can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce attrit?
- Attrit is pronounced /əˈtɹɪt/.
- What is the past tense of attrit?
- The past tense of attrit is attrited.
Words near attrit in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: attrit (page history and authors); attrit (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “attrit.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/attrit. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.