Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Definitions

attenuate

[uh-ten-yoo-ayt, uh-ten-yoo-it, -ayt] / əˈtɛn juˌeɪt, əˈtɛn ju ɪt, -ˌeɪt /


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:

Firms raise prices, lower prices, seek this way and that to attenuate the competitive forces that drive every business relentlessly toward profitlessness.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 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

"Seismic waves attenuate rapidly for distances away from the source, and therefore have limited resolution when they reach the depths of interest."

From Science Daily ● May 8, 2024

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

Her flowing dress of white brocade made no attempt to compress, to sustain or to attenuate.

From Tante by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

"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

Sloth is the weight of matter, in itself inert, within us, and this sloth, while it professes to preserve us by economizing our forces, in reality attenuates us and reduces us to nothing.

From Tragic Sense Of Life by J. E. Crawford (John Ernest Crawford) Flitch

During its short-lived rescue attempt, the U.S. military contacted dozens of ships, encouraging them to break out, and offered reassurances that the Navy, using AI-powered drones, has attenuated the risk of sea-mines planted by Iran.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 9, 2026

It’s way too attenuated to fit into the language of the statute, because the tariffs don’t actually “deal with” this threat of fentanyl.

From Slate ● May 29, 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

Anolik is less charitable about Babitz’s subsequent work, which she considers to be attenuated and strained, lacking the buzzy exuberance of “Slow Days, Fast Company.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2024

But contact between those two big landmasses was restricted to those few small groups of Torres Strait islanders with a highly attenuated New Guinea culture, interacting with those few small groups of Cape York Aborigines.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

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


Vocabulary lists containing attenuate

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

Get a word

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Dictionary.com's Learning Companion

Go beyond just looking up words.
Remember them forever with VocabTrainer.

Start training