- 1減弱、衰減；使變細。醫學固定說減毒（減毒疫苗 attenuated vaccine）。
To attenuate something is to make it weaker, thinner, or less — not to cut it off, but to wind it down. Scientists attenuate a signal so it arrives quieter; walls can attenuate noise. Doctors attenuate a virus: they it on purpose so a vaccine can teach the body without making you badly ill (an attenuated vaccine). You can also attenuate blame, force, or an effect, meaning you it. There is an adjective too, a little less common in everyday talk: already thinned or . The Latin picture is make thin: ad- (toward) plus a verb from tenuis (thin). Though actually, in real use the thin is often only a picture. A feeling, a , or an argument can be attenuated without anyone getting skinnier. The word is formal and scientific; friends do not say could you attenuate the music? — they say turn it down. Students sometimes reach for it when they mean accentuate (to stress, to make more noticeable), which is almost the opposite move.
組成Borrowed from Latin attenuātus, from attenuō: ad- (to, toward) + tenuō (to make thin), from tenuis (thin). English -ate makes both the verb (from 1530) and the adjective (from 1626).
同家族的字
- attenuationthe noun: the weakening or thinning itself
- tenuousfrom the same Latin tenuis, thin — a tenuous link is a thin one
原始詞典資料11 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
attenuateverb/əˈtɛn.juˌeɪt/
- 1
To reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree.
- A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour, one, in a small, attenuated tone.
- 2
To make thinner, as by physically reshaping, starving, or decaying.
- Clumps of attenuated turkeys were suspended here and there.
- Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded.
- 3
To become thin or fine; to grow less.
- 4
To weaken.
- We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagreness.
- 5
To rarefy.
- "It speedily became apparent that the entire strangeness of our circumstances and surroundings—great loss of weight, attenuated but highly oxygenated air, consequent exaggeration of the results of muscular effort, rapid development of weird plants from obscure spores, lurid sky—was exciting my companion unduly."
- 6
medicinesciencesTo reduce the virulence of a bacterium or virus.
- 7
businesselectrical-engineeringelectricityTo reduce the amplitude of an electrical, radio, or optical signal.
- 8
beveragesbrewingbusinessOf a beer, to become less dense as a result of the conversion of sugar to alcohol.
- A beer which does not attenuate to the expected level in fermentation will have more residual sugar and thus be sweeter and heavier-bodied.
attenuateadj/əˈtɛn.juˌeɪt/
- 1
Slender, thin.
- 2
Rarefied, thin, refined.
- 3
biologybotanynatural-sciencesGradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。