attenuation

American  

[uh-ten-yoo-ey-shuhn] / əˌtɛn yuˈeɪ ʃən /

noun

1. the act of attenuating or the state of being attenuated.

2. the process by which a virus, bacterium, etc., changes under laboratory conditions to become harmless or less virulent.

3. Physics. a decrease in a property, as energy, per unit area of a wave or a beam of particles, occurring as the distance from the source increases as a result of absorption, scattering, spreading in three dimensions, etc.

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Other Word Forms

• subattenuation noun

Etymology

Origin of attenuation

1585–95; (< Middle French ) < Latin attenuātiōn- (stem of attenuātiō ). See attenuate, -ion

Example Sentences

There are two main strategies: First is “attenuation” of the variety of environment, such that “that the system produces fewer possible states of the world to be anticipated or managed.”

From Salon

Even sisters who share a close bond have usually passed through periods of attenuation.

From Los Angeles Times

After all, tidal flats are important foraging areas for birds and contribute to wave attenuation.

From Science Daily

They investigated the carbon fluxes and their attenuation off the coast of Peru in an area with a millennia-old permanent oxygen minimum zone.

From Science Daily

This layer appears to glide over a weaker region below called the asthenosphere, characterized by high seismic attenuation and low shear wave velocity.

From Science Daily