attendant

American  

[uh-ten-duhnt] / əˈtɛn dənt /

noun

• attendants
  plural

1. a person who attends another, as to perform a service.

   Synonyms:

   servant, retainer, follower, comrade, companion, escort

2. Chiefly British. an usher or clerk.

3. a corollary or concomitant thing or quality.

   Synonyms:

   consequence, accompaniment

4. a person who is present, as at a meeting.

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adjective

1. being present or in attendance; accompanying.

2. consequent; concomitant; associated; related: poverty and its attendant hardships.

   winter holidays and attendant parties; war and its attendant evils;

   poverty and its attendant hardships.

attendant British  

/ əˈtɛndənt /

noun

1. a person who accompanies or waits upon another

2. a person employed to assist, guide, or provide a service for others, esp for the general public

   a lavatory attendant

3. a person who is present

4. a logical consequence or natural accompaniment

   hatred is often an attendant of jealousy

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adjective

1. being in attendance

2. associated; accompanying; related

   attendant problems

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• superattendant
  noun
• unattendant
  adjective
• attendantly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• attendants
  plural

Etymology

Origin of attendant

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Middle French, present participle of attendre “to notice, await”; see attend, -ant

Explanation

An attendant is someone present at a meeting or event. A flight attendant, for example, tends to the needs of passengers on a plane trip. The word attendant has to do with being present. An attendant on a flight is present to help you if you need anything. An attendant event is one that happens in the presence of another event. In other words, it can mean "accompanying." An illness can have attendant symptoms that go along with it. Remember that the word ends in -ant.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

attendant attendants

Outside partnerships are especially important because of staffing reductions to the National Park Service and attendant low morale, he said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026

The passenger complained about Thornton to a flight attendant and shared the photos with the crew, according to TMZ.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

A French court has for the first time recognised cosmic radiation as a factor in the breast cancer of a long-serving flight attendant.

From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026

A flight attendant in France has succeeded in having her breast cancer recognised as an occupational disease, a first for the country's aviation industry, her lawyer and a trade union said.

From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026

Proteus was sometimes said to be Poseidon’s son, sometimes his attendant.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

You’d need the equivalent of those parade attendants in overalls who run along behind the horses with shovels.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

Every robot that faceplanted, lost a limb, or disintegrated in a spray of sparks was borne away on a stretcher by human attendants with deadpan solicitude.

From Slate ● Sep. 27, 2026

A United spokesman told me flight attendants and cleaning crews are instructed to turn any items over to customer service.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

A study this month at the Harvard Medical School in the US, external found that flight attendants and pilots had the highest level of radiation-related cancer deaths among more than 500 different professions.

From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026

As the flight attendants wandered the aisles collecting all the tiny plastic bottles of alcohol, the women on the flight started pulling headscarves out of their carry-ons and covering their hair.

From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram

Related Words

• aide
• assistant
• custodian
• helper
• nurse
• servant