attenuatedadj.
1. Made thin or slender in girth or transverse thickness (by natural shaping, mechanical reduction, starving, or wasting); tapered off; fine-drawn.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > shape > condition of being long in relation to breadth > slenderness > [adjective] > made slender
slendera1513
attenuated1677
the world > space > extension in space > measurable spatial extent > thickness > thinness > [adjective] > made or become thin
subtiliate?a1425
attenuated1677
thinned1723
1677 R. Plot Nat. Hist. Oxford-shire 107 From the basis there issue..five tails of serpents, waved and attenuated.
1742 E. Young Complaint: Night the First 10 The Spider's most attenuated Thread.
1840 T. Hood Up Rhine 226 The venerable Pastor thrust his attenuated fingers into the flame.
1853 E. K. Kane U.S. Grinnell Exped. l. 484 The kayack..by the friction of use,..becomes as attenuated as parchment.
2. Made thin in consistency; rarefied, diluted.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > constitution of matter > lack of density > [adjective] > rarefied
subtiliate?a1425
rarefied1523
subtiliated1603
attenuated?1624
attenuate1626
subtilized1628
extenuated1661
?1624 G. Chapman tr. Hymn to Hermes in tr. Crowne Homers Wks. 58 Steele..did raise..the attenuated Baies To that hot vapor.
1625 N. Carpenter Geogr. Delineated ii. ix. 148 The vapours are too much attenuated and rarified.
1823 C. Lamb Christ's Hosp. in Elia 28 Attenuated small beer.
1874 Moseley's Lect. Astron. (new ed.) lxix. 202 A huge ring of attenuated matter..girds the planet.
1876 C. M. Davies Unorthodox London (rev. ed.) 74 That most attenuated of all things, the shadow of a shade.
3. Weakened in intensity, force, effect, value.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > manner of action > lack of violence, severity, or intensity > [adjective] > weakened
acrazed1521
extenuate1555
dispirited1659
diluted1681
deadened1720
evirtuate1799
attenuated1828
watered1866
weakened1870
1828 T. Carlyle Burns in Edinb. Rev. Dec. 288 A certain attenuated cosmopolitanism had..taken place of the old insular home-feeling.
1882 Manch. Guard. 22 Sept. 5 An ‘attenuated’ or modified bacteria.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1885; most recently modified version published online September 2021).
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adj.?1624