attenuate
Americanverb (used with object)
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attenuates,
present (3rd person singular)
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attenuated,
past participle, past
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attenuating
present participle
-
to weaken or reduce in force, intensity, effect, quantity, or value.
to attenuate desire.
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to make thin; make slender or fine.
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Bacteriology, Immunology. to render less virulent, as a strain of pathogenic virus or bacterium.
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Electronics. to decrease the amplitude of (an electronic signal).
A splitter will attenuate your output.
verb (used without object)
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attenuates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
attenuated,
past participle, past
-
attenuating
present participle
adjective
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weakened; diminishing.
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Botany. tapering gradually to a narrow extremity.
verb
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to weaken or become weak; reduce in size, strength, density, or value
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to make or become thin or fine; extend
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(tr) to make (a pathogenic bacterium, virus, etc) less virulent, as by culture in special media or exposure to heat
adjective
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diluted, weakened, slender, or reduced
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botany tapering gradually to a point
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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attenuatesimple
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attenuatessimple
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have attenuatedperfect
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has attenuatedperfect
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am attenuatingprogressive
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are attenuatingprogressive
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is attenuatingprogressive
-
have been attenuatingperfect progressive
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has been attenuatingperfect progressive
Past
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attenuatedsimple
-
had attenuatedperfect
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was attenuatingprogressive
-
were attenuatingprogressive
-
had been attenuatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of attenuate
First recorded in 1520–30; from Latin attenuātus (past participle of attenuāre “to make thin, reduce”); see at-, tenuis, -ate 1
Explanation
Attenuate is a verb that means to make or become weaker. The effects of aging may be attenuated by exercise — or by drinking from the fountain of youth. The versatile word attenuate denotes a weakening in amount, intensity, or value. As a verb, attenuate is usually transitive, meaning it needs an object to be complete, such as in the sentence: "This tanning process tends to attenuate the deer hide, making it softer." The word can be intransitive in past tense, as in "The rain attenuated, ending the storm." And it can even be used as an adjective to describe something weakened: "Even an attenuated solution will remove the stain."
Vocabulary lists containing attenuate
30 GRE Words Beginning with "A"
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Hidden Figures
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A Streetcar Named Desire
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The rigid roof panel helps attenuate the little engine’s effortful ringadingding, which loses its charm after hour four or so.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 23, 2026
He recognized that if the United States were to have any meaningful relationship with Latin America, we needed to attenuate our colonialism, so he pushed through the ratification of the Panama Canal treaties.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2024
Until now, structures with isotropic porosity have been applied, but these have the drawback that they exponentially attenuate the incident solar radiation as it travels into the reactor.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2023
We therefore believe that sleep and dreams serve to attenuate negative emotions and that this process is dysfunctional in people with depression.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 5, 2023
The increasing intensity of his work tends to accentuate and not to attenuate the dissimilarities between the different grades of society, which act as an obstacle to the general reunion.
From Underground Man by Gabriel Tarde
"Sound attenuates with distance, so at one metre away, the amplitude is around 108 decibels."
From BBC ● Feb. 26, 2024
Based on this, they hypothesized that DOP activation by KNT-127 suppresses glutamatergic transmission and attenuates PL-BLA-mediated anxiety-like behavior.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 22, 2024
Jane’s quest attenuates as the novel grinds on, months and years falling around her like bodies in a plague year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 30, 2021
This creates a soft halo that attenuates the contrast between the light source and the surrounding darkness.
From Salon ● Mar. 13, 2017
"It is precisely the same as Fred, who twists, jerks, distorts and attenuates the English language in his magazine work, in order to have bread and ice-cream and jelly cake for his two blooming youngsters."
From The Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Instead, it’s worth looking at things that seem much more attenuated from the facts of this concrete case.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
They will test the theocracy to see whether the war has attenuated its strength.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026
The measles virus is attenuated in the MMR vaccine, meaning that it has been altered to produce the appropriate immune response without triggering the disease itself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2025
The team had also found in their previous work, that eating high-fat foods attenuated cerebral oxygenation in the pre-frontal cortex, during stress.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 18, 2024
Like Virginia Tucker before her, Dorothy Vaughan now presided over an appendix, still attached to the research operation but whose function had attenuated over time.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
What he finds is a conflict pitting human progress, and its attenuating battle for power and domination, against nature.
From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026
Far from attacking the root causes of global-warming, activists said, recourse to la clim' was merely attenuating the effects of global-warming.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
Commanding from a bunker in Kyiv, General Zaluzhny pursued a strategy that drew the more powerful Russian Army deep into Ukrainian territory, attenuating its supply lines, which he then attacked with sabotage groups and artillery.
From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2024
Mangroves offer coastal protection by preventing coastal erosion and attenuating waves moving to the coast.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 2, 2023
This suggested that phosphorus would be a better carrier of therapeutic radiation than radio-sodium, since the latter distributes itself all through the body as salt, attenuating its effect.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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