attenuate

Etymology

From Latin attenuāre, from attenuāt-, at- = ad- (“to”) + tenuāre (“to make thin”), tenuis (“thin”).

verb

1. (transitive) 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. 1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter 40, in Far From the Madding Crowd
2. (transitive) To make thinner, as by physically reshaping, starving, or decaying.
   Clumps of attenuated turkeys were suspended here and there. 1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 4, in His New Mittens
   Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded. 1906, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 1, in The Malefactor
3. (intransitive) To become thin or fine; to grow less.
4. (transitive) To weaken.
   We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagreness. 1851, Sir Francis Palgrave, chapter IV, in The History of Normandy and of England
5. (transitive) To rarefy.
6. (transitive, medicine) To reduce the virulence of a bacterium or virus.
7. (transitive, electronics) To reduce the amplitude of an electrical, radio, or optical signal.
8. (brewing) (of 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. 2009 July–August, John Palmer, “Attenuation: Advanced Brewing”, in Brew Your Own, archived from the original on 2013-10-06

adj

1. (botany, of leaves) Gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.