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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



12 words match “ATTENUATE”

ATTENUATE v. 4 definitions
less complex; to weaken. To undersell our rivals . . . has led the manufacturer to . . . attenuate his processes, in the allotment of tasks, to an extreme point. I. Taylor. We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagerness. Sir F. Palgrave.
ATTENUATE; ATTENUATED a. 2 definitions
Made thin or slender.
DILUTE v. 2 definitions
color, etc., of, by mixing; to reduce, especially by the addition of water; to temper; to attenuate; to weaken. Lest these colors should be diluted and weakened by the mixture of any adventitious light. Sir I. Newton.
ECPHRACTIC a.
Serving to dissolve or attenuate viscid matter, and so to remove obstructions; deobstruent. -- n.
FINE a.
Thin; attenuate; keen; as, a fine edge.
FINESPUN a.
Spun so as to be fine; drawn to a fine thread; attenuated; hence, unsubstantial; visionary; as, finespun theories.
GAUNT a.
Attenuated, as with fasting or suffering; lean; meager; pinched and grim. "The gaunt mastiff." Pope. A mysterious but visible pestilence, striding gaunt and fleshless across our land. Nichols.
GROSS a.
Thick; dense; not attenuated; as, a gross medium.
INCRASSATE v.
the mixture of another substance, or by evaporating the thinner parts. Acids dissolve or attenuate; alkalies precipitate or incrassate. Sir I. Newton. Liquors which time hath incrassated into jellies. Sir T. Browne.
PASTEURISM n.
teur, for preventing certain diseases, as hydrophobia, by successive inoculations with an attenuated virus of gradually increasing strength.
TENUATE v.
To make thin; to attenuate. [R.]
WEDGE-TAILED a.
ir of feathers longest, the rest successively and decidedly shorter, and all more or less attenuate; -- said of certain birds. See Illust. of Wood hoopoe, under Wood. Wedge-tailed eagle, an Australian eagle (Aquila audax) which feeds on various small species of kangaroos, and on lambs; -- called also mountain eagle, bo…